


The Wasteland

by The_Carnivorous_Muffin



Series: Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus [39]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Angst, Anthropomorphic, Existentialism, F/M, Female Harry Potter, Friendship/Love, Master of Death Harry Potter, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-07-01 07:20:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 66,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15769296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Carnivorous_Muffin/pseuds/The_Carnivorous_Muffin
Summary: The One True Ring, on his perilous odyssey back to Mordor, becomes acquainted with Eleanor Lily Potter and slowly begins to question the meaning of his own existence.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Obligatory note that this is NOT CANON.

The One Ring first met the girl Lily in the town of Bree that rested between Rivendell and the Shire.

 

It was only after he met her that he would think of himself as something that could meet, of the concept of self, or of anything in those terms. Before then there was only the endless feeling and the desperate passing of eternity; and an ache within him to return to what he used to be.

 

But that was before and things had changed.

 

He had been in the hands of Frodo Baggins of the Shire before hers, travelling swiftly east as the nazgül had caught wind of his call and the words Baggins and Shire. For the first time in three thousand years it had seemed as if he was finally headed home; he became impatient.

 

He’d always had a hard time with hobbits; perhaps he simply didn’t understand them. To want so little from life, to have no great ambitions beyond owning a small plot of land and raising a family; no he had never understood such simple pleasures.

 

Men, elves, dwarves, they dreamed with a passion they themselves did not know they possessed. The hearts of men were easily swayed by greed and hope in equal measure and the hearts of elves were not so distant and untouchable as the starlight they believed themselves to be. Hobbits were harder, it took them time to realize that they could be more than they chose, and thus he had always had trouble with them.

 

He had waited in the hands of Smeagol for centuries, in the hands of Bilbo Baggins for almost one hundred years, and he had come to realize as Frodo Baggins was told to flee by the gray wizard that he might be waiting even longer if he did not choose to act.

 

Uncorrupted but also careless; Frodo Baggins was uninformed. True, he had been told the facts, and he understood the basics but he did not truly understand. He thought of it as an adventure, like his uncle’s adventure, he did not know the taste of carnage or death.

 

And so in the pub Frodo Baggins slipped, for a moment, and the One Ring recognized an opportunity. He did not take it then, not at that moment, nor afterwards when the man Strider confronted the party and told them they must leave Bree before the nazgül arrived. No, he waited, waited until they were fleeing into the night and then he acted.

 

He slipped from Frodo Baggins’ pale neck, dangling from a silver chain, and onto the earth waiting for the riders in black to come.

 

And they did come but someone else came first.

 

He felt her before her fingertips grazed the gold surface, she tasted like raw power, something old and ancient that even the Valar would not recognize. He’d thought, for a moment, that perhaps their age of nonintervention had finally ended and they had come to destroy him but he did not recognize her.

 

When she did stumble across him the first thing she did was lift the chain, inspect it carefully, her thoughts intent upon him.

 

He whispered things of longing, of temptation, of greed, of a land far to the east, and of all the promised words he could think to give within himself. He whispered power in her ear and watched for something to take root.

 

But then, she responded in words that despite their clarity were almost unintelligible, _“Oh shit, it’s a horcrux.”_

 

And that was when he first met the ineffable and incorruptible Lily.

 

* * *

 

 

She got a room at the inn he had just left, The Prancing Pony, paying in small pebbles of pure gold. She gave no explanation of how she found this gold, how she managed to sneak it past the goblins or else the dwarves, and had only shrugged when the inn keeper had demanded to know who she was and where she had found it.

 

It was in this small room, overpaid for by too much money to count, that she’d first addressed him.

 

 _“So, you’re a horcrux.”_ She said, without introduction or preamble.

 

(It was difficult to understand her sometimes and it always managed to surprise him.

 

Languages had changed over the ages but had never truly been a barrier to the ring. He spoke in ideas and feelings rather than words, but sometimes it seemed as if her language was so integral to her ideas that her thoughts became foreign and lost in translation. )

 

No one had spoken to him directly before. There were a few moments where Smeagol had come close, but Smeagol had been speaking to his own insanity, the euphoria of addiction, rather than the ring itself.

 

So it was the first time he found himself answering back, _“I do not know of what you speak but I know of what I can promise. With my aid I can offer you the world; all kingdoms of men…”_

 

She cut him off casually before he could continue, _“Yeah, that’s great. Look, I’m kind of lost here and nobody speaks English. I mean, you think someone would speak English in this weird renaissance fair country. Or something vaguely European that I recognize, I could probably handle French or German, I mean Lenin’s pretty familiar with those and you know how that goes…”_

 

He’d wondered in that moment, wordless and shocked as he was, if rings were capable of being at a loss for words. He did not remember being given such capabilities in his forging all those years ago.

 

He took a moment to look at her, to see something besides her essence. She was small, a child by any race’s standard, and at a glance she looked as if she belonged to the race of men or perhaps a half-bred elf. She did not have the elven ears but the red of her hair, the pale cast of her skin, and the brilliant green of her eyes were not features typically seen in men.

 

Her heart too did not sing the song of men. It was a shining thing, a star in every sense, and looking at it he almost felt blinded by its purity. This was not to say that it was evil or good, he could not quite decide, only that it was pure and that it had a terrible innocence.

 

She dressed in odd clothing, a vibrant tunic whose shade of blue he had never seen before outside of flowers, and frayed trousers that failed to cover the majority of her legs. Her shoes had no buckles but instead were held together with strings of fabric, they looked worn and unfamiliar, as if they had seen too much walking in a land too far away.

 

His thoughts were interrupted by the girl as she broke out of her own contemplation, _“As the first thing I’ve actually found that speaks English I have a few questions for you.”_

She seemed to be waiting for some sort of response, staring at him, at the ring, with eyes that seemed too… He did not have the words for them only that they were too much of something. He tried to recall if he had ever seen such a green before.

 

 _“Yes… I will answer.”_ He said slowly, the words slipping out of him, surprisingly bare and without promise.

 

 _“Excellent!”_ The girl exclaimed, a wild grin appearing momentarily on her face, only to disappear as she began to ask questions, _“First thing’s first, where am I?”_

 

 _“Bree.”_ He answered, not entirely sure what she’d meant, because surely she had read the signs on the way in or else been told.

 

 _“Bree… Where is Bree?”_ She asked as she came to the conclusion that she didn’t know where Bree was.

 

_“Between the Shire and Rivendell, to the west of the Misty Mountains.”_

 

 _“And where are those things?”_ She prompted again and he began to realize that he’d have to go much larger if she was going to recognize anything.

 

 _“…Arda, or else Middle Earth in the common tongue.”_ He answered hesitantly and it was with fascination that he watched as she tried and failed to recognize the entirety of the world known to the race of Men.

 

 _“Well, that’s not good… I’ve never heard of a Middle Earth.”_ She stopped speaking for a moment, retreating into her own thoughts, only mutterings catching his ear.

 

 _“Are you from the west?”_ He asked, meaning across the sea although he could not picture this girl coming from there. He knew of the west, knew who resided there, no this girl was from somewhere else somewhere further east than Rhûn, further north than Forodwaith, or further south than Mordor and perhaps even further than those places.

 

 _“I have no idea; that’s the whole problem. Wherever it is it’s far enough that teleporting is out of the question.”_ She sighed, as if she had already come to terms with this information and he had just confirmed her suspicions.

 

 _“I need to find a way back home, to where I came from, do you know of any experts on this sort of thing?”_ She asked and there was his opportunity, so glaring that it was almost as if it was written upon a sign. He felt at ease with the situation once again, because just as all beings before her, there was a chink in her armor.

 

 _“But of course, there are a select few who would know of what you seek.”_ He said feeling the pieces fall into place. _“Of those there is only one who would have the power to send you further than the bounds of the known world, Sauron lord of Mordor.”_

 

There was no hint of recognition, but that was not so odd, only the very old and very learned remembered his name from all those years ago.

 

 _“Okay, and how do I reach this Sauron guy?”_ She asked her eyes narrowing slightly as she stared at him wheels of thought spinning inside her head.

 

_“Simple, wear the ring and his messengers will come to you, and from there they will take me to him and I can send word back.”_

 

She appeared to consider this for a moment, her heart an ever burning fire, and then she discarded his words as if they were nothing, _“Oh, you sir, are not good at manipulation.”_

 

 _“What?”_ He asked, unsure of what was happening.

_“If I just hand you over then there’s no guarantee you’ll ever send word back, whatever that means. Plus, if you mean the dementor horsemen, which by the way who decided it was a good idea to give the soul sucking demons horses, that passed through a few hours ago then they’d probably off me the moment I handed you over. In fact, I think there’s probably a lot of other people who could help, people a lot less likely to shank me, and you just don’t want to tell me.”_ She concluded looking almost insulted that he had even tried to suggest such a thing.

 

This had never happened before. No one had managed to resist the ring’s temptation so fully, there were some who needed to be worn down, but no one had been able to take his promises and with barely a moment’s thought cast them aside.

 

There was nothing in her, nothing swayed, nothing even remotely tempted by the fact that he could give her what she wanted; more than what she wanted. He had offered her the world and she had dismissed him.

 

She continued, _“Sauron, right, he’s probably your other half. The original, I mean, it’s why you’re so desperate to get back. Are you sure that’s really what you want? I know a horcrux and well… It’s not always that easy.”_

 

 _“Of course it’s what I want.”_ He said, without a moment’s hesitation, because there was none. How could there be? Without Sauron he was nothing, without him Sauron was a fraction of himself only together could they rule Middle Earth as they were meant to. For three thousand years he had thought only of that moment.

 

 _“And what will happen to you; when you go back?”_ She asked, pressing forward, but it seemed as if she already had an answer she believed.

 

 _“What do you mean what will happen to me?”_ He didn’t know what she meant, could barely process the words, because she was not asking what would happen to Sauron but what would happen to the ring. He would of course remain the ring but why would she expect some other outcome; why did she think he should expect some other outcome?

 

There was that muttering on her end again, and it felt as if he was listening to some half-heard conversation, occasionally another different voice responding to her own thoughts. Then she seemed to have reached some decision, _“I need a guide and translator here and in return I’ll see that you get back home. That way we both get what we want, deal?”_

 

And for whatever reason, for whatever thought possessed him, he answered hesitantly, _“…Deal.”_

 

* * *

 

 

After hours of bartering, sketching maps, arguing, and compromising they managed to reach an agreement on the route they would travel.

 

They would not head directly to Mordor but instead zigzag their way across Middle Earth visiting the wisest and oldest of beings who might possibly understand what she was talking about. Should she find her solution halfway down the road she would summon the nazgül with the ring and leave it to them to deliver him to Sauron.

 

(Of course, she hadn’t made it sound like that, she had phrased it more in terms of yelling at a man driving a cart and demanding to get on for a small fee. Hailing the dark cab, she’d said, or something similar enough that he got the idea of it.)

 

Although it was clear she knew nothing of the world he did not lie to her. He told her the wisest and fairest, those who would know the one ring and greater secrets besides it, he told her of Galadriel, of the istari in their tower Isengard, and of Elrond of Rivendell. After all, these were the beings that would become truly terrible should they choose to take the ring from her.

 

With the aura of the ring they would sense her miles before she reached their borders and when she did they would have to decide themselves where they wished to fall in the coming war. The great beings were always the most easily tempted by power.

 

They set out that morning, east towards Rivendell, and lord Elrond.

 

As she walked the girl introduced herself further, having not bothered to do so the night before. Or at least, that’s what he thought she was trying to do, _“So you really don’t know who I am then?”_

 

He was very tempted to respond back that she was a bizarre little girl who had probably been kicked by a mule in the head as an infant but he refrained.

 

 _“No Wizard Jesus in this place, then?”_ She seemed to think about this question for a moment and answered it for herself, _“I can’t decide how I feel about that, on the one hand it means I don’t have to be Eleanor Potter anymore, but on the other hand… Well, what role do I play now?”_

 

She didn’t lack coordination, for her size and her thinness she was rather athletic, but all the same it was clear that she had never walked this distance before. She tripped every now and then over loose rocks, clambered over the brush leaving far too easily read of a trail, and sweat dripped from her but none the less she never complained or even thought to complain about the weariness of her limbs.

 

She seemed content to walk on in silence, only the occasional muttering of her thoughts being heard, and had it been any other bearer he might have left it at that and resumed whispering promises and temptations. He had never ceased this, there was always the undercurrent of temptation flowing between them, but she seemed immune or else completely indifferent.

 

The silence ate at him and before he could think better on it he found himself asking, _“What is a Wizard Jesus?”_

 

 _“You know, Jesus but a wizard.”_ She said explaining nothing as she began to climb a hill.

 

 _“Who is this Jesus?”_ He asked and for a moment there was only stunned silence from her, where she physically stopped walking and stared ahead to the Misty Mountains barely visible in the distance.

 

 _“…So there’s no Jesus-Jesus either.”_ She said slowly something inside her cracking at the surface but before she could break she forced her thoughts to move on, _“Well, I can’t say it’s surprising, since I haven’t heard of anything here either… I may really never get back this time…”_

 

She sighed and then continued walking, _“Jesus is sort of a long story, we can talk about it later if you want, for now you can call me Lily.”_ And then in a casual tone she asked, _“And what exactly do I call you?”_

 

Call him, he thought for a moment, and again didn’t know quite what she meant. He recalled dark years with Smeagol, _“My precious?”_

 

Her eyebrows raised and she glanced down at her shirt where the ring was, lying next to her steady heart, and asked, _“You want me to call you my precious?”_

 

 _“I have been called it before.”_ He explained, otherwise he had only been referred to as the ring and he had a feeling that she wasn’t looking for that.

 

She pursed her lips as if deciding if she was going to call him that and finally seemed to come to a decision, _“Are you sure, I mean you seem a bit more like Odysseus than… Well, if that’s what you want, my precious, just don’t blame me when people start mistaking you for my sex slave.”_

 

He had no idea how to respond to that.

* * *

 

 

It became something of a hobby, thinking about her, puzzling through the labyrinthine mystery that she represented. Where before he had spent the years picturing the future he might have, if he was only patient, he now spent the nights and mornings thinking on the girl Lily and wondering just who she really was.

 

She was no daughter of man and she made only the barest pretenses at pretending to be one.

 

It was clear she’d never travelled between kingdoms before, initially he hadn’t been surprised by this, the roads were unsafe for grown and hardened men never mind a young girl. Her attempts to make camp, to find a road, to follow a map, were almost laughably pathetic but then she showed her hand in other skills.

 

She could make a fire by simply staring at unburned wood, she could float down great heights, she could walk on top of raging rivers as if they were solid earth; it seemed she was without limit if she only willed it.

 

She used no staff, no amulet, no ring, but instead willed the power from her very being and the world itself extended before her.

 

 _“You are not from the race of men.”_ He commented a few days into their journey feeling the constant thrum of her power, like a second heart beat.

 

She seemed puzzled by this at first, as if she herself wasn’t quite sure whether she should answer yes or no, finally she settled, _“I’m close enough for most people.”_

 

She never truly lied, or if she did it was a rare occurrence that he had not yet caught, and even when she spoke her words usually were not always meant to be misleading. She meant to convey the truth, the world, as she saw it but never the less because of that very quality sometimes the meaning of what she said was lost.

 

 _“Close enough is not the same as being.”_ He responded and she seemed to pause at this wording, something about the way he said it setting her off, but she stifled it for a moment and shrugged.

 

 _“Well, people see what they wish to see. If I’m close enough to pass then I’m close enough to be; for most people.”_ She clarified without truly clarifying.

 

He went on to ask her if her parents had been human, she’d responded that as far as she knew they had been, but she’d seemed to imply that despite her heritage that did not make her human.

 

She did not reveal the limits of her power but in he came to believe that they were far greater than the tricks she revealed with such ease. It was possible that she was more powerful than the istari, more powerful than the witch Galadriel, and perhaps had a power to rival Sauron himself.  

 

And she did not even appear aware of it.

 

She was not swayed as those who knew their own strength, who believed in themselves and reached forward, or rather she did not think that the tasks set before her were beyond her.

 

She was always burning, like a star, and he felt as if he were little more than a shadow in her light.

 

* * *

 

 

“I’m looking for the leader Elrond, I need help with _teleporting_ to another _dimension_ and not tearing apart the _universe_ in the process _._ ”

 

He had not realized that she, Lily, was this abrupt and tactless with everyone she met.

 

These were the words, half spoken in garbled poorly accented Elvish that he translated for her, which she spoke to the guardsman who first came to arrest her for trespassing at the river’s edge.

 

Needless to say she had not immediately been taken to Elrond but had instead been thrown back to the other side of the river.

 

However after she managed to breech the defenses, to build elaborate bridges made of air and climb above the raging water, they had eventually taken to the dungeons where she would soon be questioned by Lord Elrond.

 

There were worse dungeons to be placed in, the elves of Rivendell had always been more courteous than the warrior woodland elves, but none the less it was a cell complete with bars.

 

 _“Surely there was a better way to go about that.”_ The ring didn’t particularly care, he had seen the insides of prisons, the bottom of great rivers, the very depths of the earth and had resigned himself to seeing many more before he crossed into Mordor.

 

Her answer was a distracted and somewhat frustrated, _“Look, I can’t have a conversation with you and Lenin at the same time, even though you’re both saying the exact same thing.”_

 

She didn’t bother to explain this, or who Lenin even was, but after five or so minutes of what sounded like muted rapid conversation she turned her attention back to him. _“I’m inside the place, Elrond’s eventually going to have to come and see me for breaking in, and nothing’s on fire I’d say I did pretty well.”_

 

_“Nothing’s on fire?”_

 

 _“You know it’s all gone to hell when things start catching fire.”_ She explained and with that he had the feeling that there were many things unsaid but as usual she failed to elaborate.

 

As it was they ended up waiting in the cell for a few nights, enough time that the girl began telling tales of her homeland, sketching out ideas and thoughts on the walls. She explained the words that refused to translate, or she attempted to explain them, and with each word there were a thousand others that only she could understand.

 

They pertained to illusion, desire, life, the world, time, dreams, magic, starlight, and death. Things that were only connected to each other through metaphor and poetry seemed intrinsically interwoven in her mind as if you could not speak on one without somehow brushing against the others.

 

Reality, she called it, that which is only perceived but never truly seen.

 

It must have been a sight to the elves, to see a thousand words and pictures inscribed on the walls, and a girl standing amidst the chaos with eyes too green to belong to any man.

 

* * *

 

 

“My guards say that you wished to see me; when you passed through our gates.”

 

The girl was removed from her cell for the conversation, perhaps they had decided that they were mistaken in believing her a threat, or perhaps they recognized that she was too large a threat to simply be locked away like a common thief.

 

For whatever reason she and Elrond walked about the grounds for this conversation.

 

“Yes, I’m afraid I’m very lost at the moment and I should probably be getting home.” She’d responded after waiting for his translation, she was good at mimicry and picking up words, her accent was still terrible but she was understandable.

 

The elf lord took a moment to look at her, look at her strange clothing, hear her thick accent, and said “These are very dark times I’m afraid and we have tried to be very careful in recent years. A proper introduction is in order; I as you appear to know, am Elrond the lord of Rivendell.”

 

She reached out with a hand, he stared at it for a moment, it seemed to be some custom from her homeland. When she realized he was unfamiliar with it she dropped her hand, “Lily.”

 

“Lily daughter of…” The lord prompted but Lily just stared back at him blankly.

 

She knew of her parents, she had said as much, but for whatever reason she would not give her mother’s name in this first meeting. Instead she repeated her own name, “Lily.”

 

“Well then, Lily, what did you come to find me for?”

 

“I need help, without shattering the very essence of the world.” She said very seriously before continuing, “I’m not from here, I’m from… very far. Possibly from the stars, I’m not sure, yours aren’t familiar and that’s not a good sign.”

 

She looked up, stars had been the wrong word, she’d meant something else but whatever it was it was a concept that he couldn’t catch only that it had something to do with the heavens and with starlight.

 

“Possibly from…” Elrond said only to be cut off by the girl.

 

“Point being, it’s really far, and I have no idea how I got here or why and I should probably head back before people start missing me. I was told you were really old and really powerful, and I happened to be in Bree at the time, so I thought I’d stop by.”

 

He seemed a bit floored by her words, not quite sure what to make of them, and the ring couldn’t help but wonder when the last time the man’s face had made such an expression. Ignorance, confusion, these were the emotions of the young rarely seen in an elf Elrond’s age.

 

“They speak Elvish in this other land?” He asked suddenly seeming to piece something together.

 

“Oh, what, no I speak English. I just managed to pick up a translator and guide, my precious.” She said and then, to the ring’s sudden and growing horror, she drew him out of her shirt and showed the one ring to the Lord of Rivendell.

 

Of course he had intended this moment, this temptation, to abandon her as he had abandoned others but facing this directly was far different. He sang out every promise, every dream, every latent desire he could think to name and the elf’s resolve flickered in front of him.

 

He was taken from her and for a single moment, the loss of her had almost been painful, a sharp sensation through his core, and everything seemed to grow cold without her light. The ring dangled on the chain before Elrond, glinting in the sunlight, and in that moment it seemed that Middle Earth itself was dangling with it.

 

Elrond gave the ring back to the girl, placing it into her hand and curling her fingers around it, and asked in a very grave voice, “Where did you find this?”

 

The ring did not translate, he left the words to her imagination, without his translation she looked at the lord blinking dumbly and then asked in an uncertain voice, “English?”

 

He asked again, more insistent, and the girl hesitantly responded to what she thought he was asking, “Not, speak… not work right.” She said pointing to the ring and as she spoke her own sense of irritation growing at his refusal to cooperate.

 

But he would not participate in this conversation, he would not reveal his own secrets to this girl, he would not prevent his homecoming.

 

“This ring is very dangerous and very old.” The elf lord grabbed the girl’s shoulders, gently, but she still flinched at the contact, “A party recently came believing they had delivered it here for safekeeping; but they had lost it on the road and now you have found it.”

 

“English!” She insisted more forcefully that bright fire of her soul blazing at the words at the frustration behind them.

 

He seemed to realize then that whatever miraculous thing had allowed her to converse with him had ended and that now she was a foreign girl with a foreigner’s tongue.  He encircled her hands with his own, encircling the ring, and very gravely looked at her so that she would understand without words, “The ring, it cannot be trusted.”

 

She seemed to understand because something in her thoughts clicked, shifted, and she did not respond back to Elrond.

 

It was with a sense of foreboding that he listened to the now familiar mutterings of her thoughts, hidden just out of his view, churning away and deciding his fate.

 

* * *

 

 

A council was summoned, the likes of which had never been seen in thousands of years, where men, dwarves, elves, and even a hobbit sat at the same high table and discussed the fate of the world. And in the center of it all the ring was placed upon the table, bright words of fire dancing on the golden band, and staring out at them all.

 

And he had no idea what to do with himself.

 

It was almost flattering, all the attention he was receiving, for a moment he had felt oddly like a maiden in some high tower with thousands of sons of lords fighting for her hand beneath her windowsill.

 

After he had realized that he would not be thrown somewhere inside Rivendell, sequestered for thousands of more years, he had regained his distance from the situation.

 

Rivendell was not what it once was, it could not stand against the forces of Mordor let alone the traitor Isengard. The age of the elves was ending and with it the ability to safeguard the ring from Sauron.

 

The ring, the elf lord had declared at the beginning of the meeting, would have to be destroyed.

 

After that all chaos had broken loose, people bickering with one another, without even him prompting their actions. Elves and dwarves considered their age long feud with one another, men dreamed of too much glory to handle, some were shouting of madness and suicide while others were shouting of necessary hardships, and it seemed that everyone was at each other’s throats.

 

The only ones that didn’t partake were the girl, who had only been invited due to the fact that she had been the last bearer of the ring, as well as the hobbit Frodo Baggins who had originally intended to bring the ring to Rivendell.

 

The girl seemed uninterested, almost bored by the display, perhaps slightly confused but willing to wait for an explanation rather than demand one. She sat cross legged on her chair, staring across at him with a pensive expression, her eyebrows raised slightly at the scene.

 

She had tried, in the beginning of the meeting, to contribute in her own way with her limited grasp of the common tongue, but at this point it appeared she had more or less given up and decided to wait until it was all finished.

 

Frodo Baggins was staring at him in petrified fear, in horror, as he saw his world tearing itself apart.

 

And then there was a single voice of reason amidst the madness.

 

“I will take the ring to Mordor!”

 

All eyes turned to the hobbit, the girl Lily’s included, and the hobbit continued, “I will take the ring to Mordor, though I do not know the way.”  

 

* * *

 

 

Initially she had not planned to travel south east with the fellowship, as Elrond had taken to calling it.

 

They had discussed it after the council meeting, when Frodo Baggins had confronted her in her quarters, shyly staring at his feet and thinking of all the words he needed to say to a foreign ring bearer who had somehow saved them all when hope was lost.

 

And perhaps half of her indifference came from juggling two conversations at once but nonetheless he’d felt something cold and hollow at the thought that she could so easily leave him behind.

 

 _“If you haven’t noticed I have a vocabulary of about four words at the moment; until I get a little more fluent I can’t even begin to ask the questions I need to.”_ She’d said as she looked at Frodo with an alarmingly blank expression as she took in his words.

 

“I heard, that… I heard that you were the one to bring the ring from Bree to Rivendell.” Frodo had started staring at her with a pleading expression. She just continued to blink and stare, looking as if there wasn’t a single thought in her head.

 

 _“See, I got none of that, maybe Bree was in there somewhere.”_ She said to him and with the equivalent of a mental sigh continued, _“I think Elrond offered me a place to stay and pick up the language, I wasn’t completely sure but he’s not kicking me out and offered me a room. He seems to know what he’s doing, more or less, so I might as well just stick around and ask him.”_

 

Frodo meanwhile, seemed fazed by her lack of reaction, but persisted never the less began again, “I just wanted… I thought I should thank you, for everything you’ve done. I thought my adventure would end here, and that I’d just head back home but… It’s really far from over, isn’t it?”

 

The ring spoke over Frodo’s words, _“This will take you time without a translator.”_

 

 _“You were a terrible translator. I didn’t even know there was a quest thing until people started packing; I thought we were doing a reenactment of the Jerry Springer show.”_ She dismissed again not bothering to explain why she would assume the council meeting had been some sort of violent play.

 

“I don’t feel prepared, like someone who should carry the ring…” Frodo said, staring at the floor, failing to realize that the girl wasn’t listening to a word he was saying, “I just thought you might understand since you actually carried it most of the way for me. It’s heavy, so terribly heavy, even after only a few days it weighs on your soul. But, someone must…”

 

And it was in that moment that the ring realized that he and Frodo Baggins were trying to ask the same thing for very different reasons. Frodo Baggins wished to have a failsafe, someone who could carry the ring to Mordor for him should the worst occur, someone who had proven capable of resisting its call.

 

And the ring, he did not wish to part with her before he intended to.

 

They might believe they were taking him to his demise, past the black gates, but they were only bringing him home and he would see that she came with him if only for the entertainment.

 

 _“Frodo Baggins is asking you to join the fellowship.”_ The ring said, abandoning his own arguments and methods of persuasion in favor of blunt honesty.

 

Lily looked over at Frodo, assuming the ring meant the hobbit, with raised eyebrows, _“Why?”_

 

_“He believes that you could carry the ring should he fail on the journey.”_

 

Lily didn’t seem to appreciate what a difficult task it was to resist the ring, to be a bearer, so there was no understanding at why Frodo had to be the one to carry the ring rather than the others who had agreed to accompany him. Certainly to someone uninformed it seemed like an idiotic decision, to give the ring to the weakest link in the chain, but never the less it was the safest decision they could have made.

 

It would not save them.

 

 _“What does this have to do with me and somehow finding a way to cross dimensions?”_ Lily asked but there was something there, something that understood, that Frodo’s quest was not to be passed over and watched from the sidelines.

 

(In the back of her mind he could hear the murmurs of destiny.)

 

She’d failed to hold a conversation with Frodo Baggins but she recognized him for what he was, someone earnest and good, who faced more trials than he realized and more than he might be able to handle. There was a sense of recognition when she looked at Frodo Baggins; as if she had seen someone very similar before and could not turn her back with complete indifference.

 

_“Because he will need your aid if he is to make it through the gates of Mordor.”_

 

At the same time Frodo finally asked, staring her directly in the eyes, “I’d like for you to join the fellowship.”

 

For a moment she considered the pair of them, Frodo and the ring, no emotions on her face and as she did so Frodo babbled while the ring silently waited for her decision, “I know that it’s dangerous, that you have no need to as I have already agreed to bear the ring, I know that it’s a long journey and I know… I know you don’t speak our language very well but… I think it’s better if there were two bearers, instead of one.”

 

She nodded stopping Frodo’s words and said a single foreign word, “ _Alright._ ”

 

And then the fellowship was ten.

 

* * *

 

 

_“How far away is this Mordor place anyways?”_

 

It’d been about a week on the road and Lily was beginning to grow weary. Not that she was alone in this, the hobbits were starting to feel haggard, and only those that were used to the open road were faring well. The journey was long and hard and each step made it seem longer, the songs they sang and tales they told could not distract their hearts from the true nature of their journey.

 

They currently were making camp, just before the fields of Rohan, a few of the hobbits learning swordsmanship from Boromir the man from Gondor, as the gray wizard and ranger kept watch over them with mirth. The elf kept watch alone on the horizon, the dwarf tended to his axes, and Frodo sat only a small ways away from the girl with Sam staring out at the path they had yet to tread.

 

 _“Far, even by the distance a crow flies.”_ He said, because they had started from far to the northwest, and while the fields of Rohan would lead them close there remained the issue of whether they could truly cross them or not.

 

Because thus far the journey had been far too easy.

 

 _“Right, and why was I invited again?”_ She asked, looking around at her companions, who were all somehow managing to avoid looking at her. The Fellowship was uncomfortable with the idea of a young maiden managing to have brought the ring safely to Rivendell and now accompanying them on their journey.

 

There was talk of witchcraft, of a spy for Sauron, and he was not sure how he felt about this, because on the one hand it was a weakness to exploit. More so even than Boromir of Gondor’s weak and mortal heart, their fear and suspicion towards her would destroy them before they even began, but he did not want them to turn against her.

 

He wanted her kept separate from them, apart; he wanted her heart to remain untainted and untempted. If he could carry her with him, outside of the mortal plane somehow, then he would do so but as it was he simply waited and watched.

 

 _“Because you are a ring bearer, even if you are unexpected, and such talents are not easily found.”_ No one could deny her that, at the very least, even if she herself did not take this seriously.

 

 _“What are you, the arc of the covenant? Seriously, this is a lot of drama for a piece of jewelry.”_ It was almost insulting how she really did regard him as a normal mortal piece of metal, as if the ring was the end of him, of course she knew this wasn’t true and had told him as much when they had first met but never the less there was something about it that he didn’t like.

 

 _“I am not a piece of jewelry!”_ He snapped back and Frodo clutched the ring to his chest, a slightly pained expression crossing his face as he did so, as he felt the One Ring’s ire. Samwise, the other hobbit, inquired after him but Frodo only shuddered slightly.

 

“I think I should like to hear one of Bilbo’s tales again.” Frodo said slowly, turning towards Sam as he said it, “Sometimes it feels as if we shall never reach Mordor.”

 

 _“Did he say something important?”_ Lily asked when he didn’t bother to translate for her, he’d found that he’d needed to translate less and less as fewer of the fellowship attempted direct conversation with her.

 

That and she didn’t seem to care what they said most of the time. Lily showed no true interest in politics or even the purpose of the quest they were on, only asking him what she felt she needed to know rather than listening in.

 

_“Not particularly, he’s contemplating telling one of his uncle’s tales again to hearten his step. I think he’s feeling a bit overwhelmed.”_

 

Lily groaned, placing her head in her hand, causing all members of the fellowship to turn from their various activities and look towards her, “No more rhyming stories, please.”

 

Frodo looked as if he’d been struck and the rest unamused, with a pipe in his mouth and a sidelong look the gray wizard addressed her, “Miss Lily, it has been a long journey thus far with far more to go so perhaps you might keep your opinions on Master Baggins’ tales to yourself.”

 

Lily disregarded this loudly with a wave of her hand, as if the words were merely words that held no meaning, drawing (if possible) more irritation from her audience.

 

“I mean, maybe it’d be less of a problem if they were all stories about Rambo, and they didn’t rhyme. But they’re not about Rambo and they do rhyme, and I just can’t take it anymore.” She sighed, staring out into the plains and then stated with determination, “You know what, I should tell a story instead, from my homeland.”

 

“From your homeland?” The Gondorian asked his eyebrows raising and lowering his sword to his side, “And where exactly is your homeland, Lily daughter of no one?”

 

“I already told you guys, I don’t really know, it’s probably in another _dimension_ or on another _planet_.”

 

Throughout the fellowship there was that thought running like a river between all of them that perhaps they should have insisted harder to the ring bearer that the girl Lily was not to accompany them. The gray wizard tolerated her more than others but even he was unnerved by her as he saw in her a too young sorceress with more power than he had ever imagined possible. This was not the journey to look into gifted youth and yet she was accompanying them anyway because they could not afford to fail.

 

Should Frodo fail in his quest they would have to pass the ring to her but that did not mean a single one of them liked it. And there were some, like Boromir who was already doubting and so very easily manipulated, who didn’t believe a word she said.

 

“Of course once again you speak words that mean nothing, seeking to confuse us with half-truths and falsehoods, but you are not half so sly as you think.” Boromir stepped forward towards her, ignoring the slight protestation from the hobbits or the wary eyes of the other fellowship members.

 

The One Ring was almost growing fond of Boromir, he could feel him so easily as he spoke, he was so very passionate. A good man, it was true, but he hungered for glory and justification. To prove himself the true heir of Gondor, the savior of his people, and it was dangerous to dream of such things when you were of the race of men.

 

Boromir of Gondor would be his salvation, he was certain of it.

 

Lily meanwhile was looking at the man with that distant and blank expression she almost always wore, as if her thoughts had shut off completely, and it was only after a little while that a rueful smile appeared at the corner of her lips as if someone had just said something particularly witty. And once again he could only hear that murmuring in her thoughts, as if there was some deeper river within her that he could not see.

 

He felt hollow at the thought of it.

 

“You know, manipulation isn’t the same as being subtle.”

 

“What?”

 

“I don’t have to be subtle, sly, to get people to do what I want them to do.” She said and then shrugged, “I mean, really, subtlety actually takes longer because then they have to figure out what the hell it is they’re supposed to do.”

 

Boromir seemed put off by this, as if he had wanted for her to deny his claim, and the rest of the fellowship seemed ill at ease as well. The girl however paid no mind and continued her explanation, “You really overestimate my patience if you think I’m going to waste time leading you all to your doom when I could just blow you all up in two seconds if I wanted to.”

 

They all seemed to consider that, eyeing her and then turning to Gandalf the Gray as if to seek confirmation, and while Gandalf said nothing the fact that he did not outright deny her claim or say that this power was not possible spoke volumes.

 

“…That cloud is swiftly approaching.” Aragorn mentioned, and the group turned to the horizon where indeed a dark cloud approached, far too swiftly considering the lack of wind. The elf ran to the ledge, peering forward, “That is no cloud.”

 

“Spies from Saruman!”

 

And there was a flurry of movement where the fire was doused, the camp torn apart, and they hid under ledges and in bushes so as to avoid view. The only one who failed to understand was the girl Lily, who stood lamely in the middle in her brightly colored tunic.

 

The crows were almost overhead, she was about to be spotted, but then the elf quickly grabbed her and flung her under the bushes covering her clothing with his own body so she would not be spotted.

 

_“What just happened?”_

 

And it was only after they crawled out of corners and crevices, from under shrubs and rocks, that the ring answered her, _“The pass is being watched.”_

 

They would have to take some other road in order to pass the Misty Mountains.

 

* * *

 

 

The mountain road was harder than the plains had been. The snow was deep even in the summer, and the hobbits were almost overwhelmed by it. The girl Lily had taken to walking on top of the snow, as if she were an elf and had decided to take up conversation with Frodo while the rest of the fellowship did their best to trudge upwards into the peaks.

 

“Are all people like you, in your homeland?” Frodo asked as he struggled through the snow. It was a rather halting conversation, as it took most of his energy to wade through and not fall over, but he had a deep desire to be distracted from his journey.

 

And as the ring well knew there was no greater distraction than the girl Lily.

 

“Well, we look alike.” Lily answered after a slight pause, “I’ve always been… Well people are… No, not really.” She finally concluded after failing to find a satisfactory answer, the ring had often wondered this himself, but it was hard to picture Lily belonging to any race or culture.

 

Besides, she seemed far too at ease with being ostracized.

 

“Oh, what are they like then?” Frodo asked.

 

Lily shrugged, “I don’t know, most of them aren’t even really people but more like…” Lily waited for the ring’s translation but he himself was having difficulty understanding the concept. The idea was that people weren’t thinking beings, that they were instead like songs or characters in plays, where they had no substance behind themselves and could only say what they had been written to say. That the world was a play that someone had written, whose plot wasn’t immediately evident, and that only a few were anything more than characters.

 

But he didn’t know how to say this, how to put this into a few words, a single word.

 

When he failed to find anything in time she finished the sentence, “Boromir.”

 

“Boromir?” Frodo asked, confusion evident in his features, but Lily seemed pleased by her answer.

 

The ring felt disquiet at the idea, because hadn’t he always thought something similar about the man, only he had approached it in a much different way. It wasn’t a lack of being but a weak heart that drove Boromir’s passions, he was lesser yes, but this did not mean he wasn’t… true. That he was irrelevant, and yet, to Lily he appeared less than a speck of dust.

 

“Exactly, like Boromir.” Lily said, her smile growing at having found and completed a sentence without the ring’s aid.

 

Frodo thought on this for a long time, not quite sure what Lily meant, eventually deciding that she meant that her own realm was filled with men, like those who lived on Rohan and Gondor, who were noble and righteous thus missing the point completely. Ironic, that those words should warm Frodo’s heart towards her.

 

As they climbed higher, and the snow and wind picked up, he eventually ceased talking, and as they neared the peak none could hear a sound above the white wind. Winter was fast approaching but it was too early for a storm of this intensity and if you listened closely dark and deep words could be heard amid the lightning strikes.

 

The elf commented about it and the wizard attempted to counter it, but he was only a gray wizard who faced the highest member of his order, and he could not bring down the storm.

 

“We should take the mines, Gandalf!” The dwarf said, sounding enthused, as he had been suggesting to travel through the mines since the very beginning believing his cousin still ruled there (but the wizard’s heart was always dark when he thought of the realm beneath the mountain).

 

At Gandalf’s hesitation others begin shouting, saying it was suicide to take on the mountain further and that they would not pass through alive.

 

But the wizard still seemed uncertain.

 

Finally the girl Lily spoke, her voice somehow perfectly clear above the storm, “What’s wrong with the mines? If Gandalf the _Dumbledore_ , who was tortured by evil _Nazi_ wizards for a month doesn’t want to go down there I don’t know if I want to.”

 

“What would you know, witch?” Boromir shouted, “We will die if we try to pass through this mountain, Saruman has seen clear to that.”

 

“No, we’ll just be really damn cold. If we pass through the mines then we get to meet what’s making the gray wizard quake in his boots. I mean, not that I can’t handle whatever it is, but judging by his expression I’m not sure that you can.” She said sounding more than a little irritated.

 

“You doubt our courage?”

 

She didn’t, she thought many of them were courageous to the point of stupidity, but she didn’t say so. Instead she looked out over the peaks, turning from her fellow companions, and slowly wordlessly drew a great power out of herself. And suddenly there was no wind, and the snow around them hung suspended, as if they were caught in a picture somehow.

 

She turned back to them slowly and said grimly, “We’d better hurry it up, because he’s going to try really hard to break these wards.”

 

She made to move to the front, still walking on top of the snow, but no one followed. In their hearts dark flowers of suspicion grew instead, they grew from seedlings and blossomed with stained petals, and each could not help but think she had done so easily what Gandalf himself could not and that she seemed so desperate for them to follow the mountain road.

 

“Frodo, as the ring bearer, it is up to you what path we take.” Gandalf said slowly, turning to the hobbit who was still staring at the girl.

 

For a moment the girl met the eyes of the ring bearer, and he found that they seemed inhuman, more ancient and cold than even the eyes of the elves. He saw her, and couldn’t help but shudder.

 

And the ring could help but feel some cold dread flower blooming inside him as well; although he did not know its name.

 

“We’ll take the mines.”

 

* * *

 

 

The mines proved a trying experience for Frodo Baggins. In the light, on the fields, in the peaks, it was an adventure similar to that of his beloved uncle’s. Of course, his uncle had been brief on the darker moments of his own journey. The ring had been there with him and he could tell Frodo just how much of “There and Back Again” was abridged.

 

In the shadows the dead lay with arrows still in their chests and their heads still smashed open. They had rotted in the deep and in the dark until only their bones remained, the rest consumed by rats and vermin and whatever else stirred in the depths.

 

Below them, where the dwarves had once hollowed out the mountain, the goblins now resided sharpening their axes and dreaming of flesh and blood from young and tender things. And the fellowship walked on, alone, with only two lights to guide them keeping mind to go swiftly before their neighbors gave them notice.

 

And the ring’s own past lurked just behind them, almost out of sight. Smeagol had crawled out of whatever hole the ring had left him in and now followed on four limbs, “golum” catching in his throat every once in a while, fish eyes intent on Frodo Baggins.

 

How long had it been since he had thought of the pathetic, ruined, Smeagol? It had been a miracle that Bilbo Baggins had come to him that night, all those years ago, and there had not been a second thought in his head that it was time to abandon Smeagol for all he was worth.

 

Smeagol had held him the longest out of any living creature. Longer than Isildur, longer than Bilbo Baggins, longer even than Sauron his creator. But when Frodo looked back on the creature, consulted Gandalf on it, his heart turned so cold at the sight that the most pity he could conjure was a death wish.

 

The ring couldn’t help but see the creature through Frodo Baggins eyes and think that he destroyed everything he touched.

 

But of course, such thoughts were unlike him (thinking in general was unlike him), and he decided not to pay them mind and instead think of the journey beyond the mines and the ruins of the dwarves.

 

At some point during the journey, Lily walked beside him in spirit, though physically she was far behind Frodo in the back of the group. Deliberately ignored, spreading light into the darkness with nothing more than her hands, staring out into the great chasms that seemed to go down infinitely.

 

_“There is a shadow under this red rock,_

_(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),_

_And I will show you something different from either_

_Your shadow at morning striding behind you_

_Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;_

_I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”_

 

For a moment he forgot Frodo Baggins’ heartbeat and instead felt as if he and the girl were the only ones who existed within Arda, with her footsteps he could hear his own (nonexistent) footsteps echoing, as if he was walking beside her in a solid physical form and could not help but stare at the fire that was her hair.

 

He could not understand her words.

 

They were unlike her, they were far too poetic, like elvish rather than the coarse casual and flippant language she preferred. They had the taste of prophecy in them, of old forgotten tales, and yet he could not place them. He could not understand them.

 

 _“This place reminds me of T.S. Eliot.”_ She said after a moment, her eyes looking beyond him to the great columns, the city of the dwarves.

 

He had nothing to say to that, as he had nothing to say to those words, only that somehow they haunted him in a way that no being’s words ever had. They lingered deep within him, like the marks he bore on golden skin, the words of his creation that defined him as a ring above all other rings.

 

I will show you fear in a handful of dust, she said.

 

(He was thinking such odd things, as of late, it couldn’t be good for him.)

 

He turned his attention to the city itself and answered the question she hadn’t asked.

 

 _“The dwarves had too much hubris and time and again it destroyed them.”_ This was not the only mine that they dug too long and too deep in search of all that glittered, _“Their numbers dwindle even further than that of elves; I suspect they will be the first race to disappear from this world entirely.”_

 

For a moment she said nothing but then, in a grave voice, she said, _“So this world is collapsing too, then.”_

 

 _“It is the end of an age.”_ He agreed cautiously, the elves were leaving, and there was uncertainty as to what the new millennium might bring. Whether it was the age of the Orcs, of Men, or perhaps even of Hobbits was not decided yet.

 

Should he return to Sauron the fate of the world would be sealed.

 

But of course, he would, that was why the fellowship existed after all. They would take him into Mordor itself and from there it would be all too easy to get where he needed. He really should thank Elrond at some point, because no one had ever thought to deliver him before.

 

_“I think I’ll bail, once we get out of these mines.”_

 

His thoughts of the future stopped and he felt his attention focus on her once again, that bright star like heart, and her eyes like the jewels the dwarves had killed themselves over.

 

He did not understand.

 

_“Why?”_

 

 _“Why not?”_ She responded without emotion, her heart as always that distant and untouched thing, _“These people don’t like me, I don’t like most of them, and they’ve made it clear that they don’t really want my help, and ultimately I don’t want theirs. I don’t even need theirs, I’m way above Gandalf the Dumbledore’s power level so I might as well go back to see Elrond and see what he might make of all of this. Quests usually require reasons, and I don’t have a reason.”_

 

For a moment he wanted to shout at her that she still did not understand Westron, Elvish, Dwarvish, or any intelligible language for that matter. He wanted to confirm that the dark lord Sauron understood this universe best, that he was the only one who might help her. He wanted to tell her that without her aid the fellowship would certainly fail; but he could not bring himself to say it.

 

_I will show you fear in a handful of dust._

 

She continued once again, _“It’s been interesting, but it’s time to move on. I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for.”_

 

He wouldn’t.

 

(For a moment Frodo stopped in the middle, clutching his heart, his eyes alight in panic and he could not decipher why this feeling of dread was blooming through him so suddenly and without warning or reason. But the ring could not think of his own feeling spilling over into his bearer, not now.)

 

Although he knew what he sought, Sauron his creator the physical manifestation of himself, he knew without knowing why that he must also bring Lily with him or it would be as if he never reached Sauron at all.

 

He would not find what he was looking for if she did not come with him.

 

And he must find what he was looking for.

 

But the moment was lost for in that moment they found the final resting place of Gimli the dwarf’s cousin and the hobbit Pippin summoned the goblin horde through his foolishness. Then there was only the familiar smell of war, of blood acrid steel, the screams of all races intermingled until one was hardly different from the other.

 

He felt himself detached from Frodo Baggins, indifferent to his terror at his first battle, at the troll that shuffled after him, striking a blow against the mythril he had been given by his uncle Bilbo Baggins. He had seen this scene so very many times before in so very many different places.

 

It was as if he was walking futher and further away even as they ran from the sound of something deep from below, from the feeling of fire and old death, and all at once the ring felt so very old and so very tired.

 

He was so tired.

 

One day he would be reunited with Sauron, soon, but soon was not soon enough and even then… And even then…

 

He was so tired.

 

They came to a bridge, the balrog following with fire in his hand, and Gandalf the Gray made to confront him but was soon pushed out of the way by the girl Lily.

 

“Miss Lily…” Gandalf started but she walked calmly forward, without hesitation or hurry, as if she had been born for this moment.

 

Only when she had reached the bridge did she look back, her eyes lit by the embers in the air, and gave them a small and softer smile than she had ever shown them before.

 

“Run, you fools.” She said.

 

Then with a wave of her hand the bridge separated from the exit and slowly but surely began to tumble into the depths with her and the balrog still standing upon it.

 

It seemed as if time slowed, as he watched her sail off into the dark with a calm and wistful smile on her face, and though he knew Frodo Baggins would lead him to Mordor, would deliver him home somehow it was not enough.

 

And without a thought the chain broke and he threw himself after her into the darkness.

 

* * *

 

 

He fell for an eternity, and in that time he lost something of himself.

 

He forgot momentarily that he was a ring encircled by an ancient promise, to be a ring among all other rings apart and above, the one ring to rule them all and in the dark bind them. And instead he took form, form that was so unfamiliar to him and yet, a half forgotten memory from eons ago.

 

He was curled about himself, unclothed, falling so swiftly in the dark that it felt as if he had ceased to fall at all. As if there was nothing but the sensation of falling, weightless, without a bearer to guide his path, alone in the dark.

 

“And I will show you something different from either your shadow at morning striding behind you or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” He whispered to himself closing his eyes and with that the memories so recent and fresh rose to his mind.

 

So young, a child by any race’s standards, only an adolescent if she was descended from men… And yet, when she had found him on the street, she had been untouched by his whispers and had seen through them for the illusions they were. What had she seen in their place?

 

What would she show him in a handful of dust?

 

“I should not have jumped.” He concluded, the darkness silent as he fell further and further into the depths of the earth, where it snowed and rained and a quiet sea raged far beneath him and out of sight.

 

“If I had stayed with Frodo Baggins, or even taken the mind of Boromir should the hobbit prove too valiant, then I would have returned to Sauron and he would regain physical form.” He could feel his other’s eye, still desperately searching in all the wrong places, the nine always on the loose rifling and looting and searching, searching, searching.

 

“I would have been home again, if only I had been patient.”

 

But the darkness answered back that he had been so very patient. He had waited thousands of years, he had waited, waited, waited in the deep and the dark.

 

Listening only to the mad sounds of “My own, my love, my precious” until he wondered if things like rings could have names or titles of endearments. He had no sense of being so how could he be worshipped? How could he have virtues such as patience?

 

He had not truly thought of himself as himself, as a thing to be recognized and reflective, until he had met her bright green eyes.

 

And that was why he had jumped.

 

“That is why I must jump.” He recognized, losing his breath at the thought, and as if that was the key to a vast door he hit the cold hard earth.

 

It was snowing, small white flakes, and his limbs shook with the chill of ice beneath him. He stood slowly, shaking, and it did not take him long to find her. The balrog had been slain, it lay dead with a sword buried in its chest, and close by was the girl a pool of blood beneath her.

 

“Lily.” He called, walking slowly towards her, his hands shaking. She did not look up or towards him, her face away from his, her limbs in an awkward angle and that pool of blood spreading ever outwards.

 

“Lily!” He repeated, kneeling over her and grabbing her, pulling her into his arms like an oversized doll. But she was gone, there was nothing in her, not even a memory.

 

She was still warm, it must have just happened, he wondered at how he had not heard the noise. His fingers brushed her face, and left trails of blood, like tears beneath her eyes. All the while the snow kept falling in small silent flakes.

 

And then…

 

And then she blinked. Suddenly the wound was gone and she was staring up at him in confusion, looking slightly alarmed at being held by a naked stranger after having… After having died. But he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, because she had blinked and he had seen and held her and known she was…

 

Suddenly he found himself being flung from her and pinned against jagged stone.

 

“So…” The girl started and then stopped, staring at him again, then her eyes widened almost comically in recognition, “Holy shit, my precious?”

 

Then before he could respond, think to respond, think how to respond she was clutching her head as if it had just been struck. She fell to her knees, still holding her head, and looking as if she might vomit.

 

He found himself released from the boulder and staring down at her, “Lily?” He asked slowly, uncertain of the word.

 

At the sound of his voice she appeared to pull herself together somewhat, getting back to her feet, rubbing at the center of her forehead as if that might expel the pain, “Sorry, distracted for a moment… How the hell did you get a body?”

 

He looked down at his new physical form, it was pale, but then he wasn’t sure if he was surprised or not by this; whatever his feelings it had yet to subside and he had yet to return to the thin golden band he once was, “I don’t know.”

 

It seemed as if his words redoubled her pain as she clutched her head again and struggled to remain standing, “You don’t know?!”

 

“I do not.” He repeated looking down at himself again, “I fell and… I changed.”

 

For a moment she just looked at him incredulously, as if she couldn’t believe those words had exited his mouth,  but there was nothing more he could say because he was not entirely sure himself.

 

“I’ve been trying to figure out how to do that for years!” She finally exclaimed then pulled out a strange red jewel from her pocket, an unpolished stone that fit in the palm of her hand, “I got my head bashed in and stabbed my professor all for this stupid rock that doesn’t even work and you just did it?”

 

She seemed unusually upset by his words and somehow, despite having helped Suaron to conquer the nations of the free world all those years ago, despite the fact that she appeared no more than a female child, he couldn’t help but take a step back.

 

“That’s it, Lenin is clearly just incompetent!” She shouted only to double once again looking, if possible, more ill than before.

 

“Are you… ill?” He asked and she shook her head.

 

“No, no, just… frustrated at the senselessness of the splintering universe.”

 

She sighed then, removing the blood from her clothing with a twitch of her fingers, and dressing him in foreign clothing in the same moment, “So what are you doing down here anyway? Shouldn’t you be with Frodo and pals on your way to Mordor?”

 

He looked down at his clothing, darker more elegant clothing than what she wore, and yet it was the same in that the colors that were present were ones he had never seen in clothing before. He found himself fingering it, wondering how she created these things out of nothing, with such ease as if these were merely tricks to amuse a court.

 

He realized then she had asked him a question.

 

“I did not wish to travel further with the fellowship.” He said simply and he found that he did not, now that they had parted ways he had no desire to seek out the company again.

 

“Well who would?” She asked, as if this was obvious that the fellowship were distasteful. Strangely he felt a pang of something at that, because they had been more than the casual dismissal Lily was now giving them.

 

True, Boromir had been susceptible, but Aragorn the heir of Isildur had true courage and honor flowing through his blood. They had been the best of all their assorted races; she simply hadn’t been able to see it.

 

However he had no desire to correct her error though; that was not his responsibility. Instead he found himself staring at her, as if nothing had changed, because she had always burned this brightly, and yet incapable of burning herself out.

 

“You were dead.” He said finally and she nodded, as if this was inconsequential.

 

“You were dead and yet returned.” He said, and again she nodded.

 

“I told you I’m Wizard Jesus.” She said, holding out her hands palm outwards towards him, a strange motion that looked as if it was supposed to be recognizable but he could not place it. Eventually her arms dropped to her sides again, and she sighed, as if somewhat disappointed that he hadn’t been able to grasp what she meant.

 

“So what now?” She asked, “Are you still hitchhiking back to Mordor?”

 

“I…”

 

She smiled at him, grinned, and it was like she had replaced the sun in that island they found themselves stranded upon, “If you’re not in a rush, why don’t you come with me? Lenin will kill me, well not literally because he’s somewhat impotent at the moment, if I don’t find out how you got that body; so it’d be nice if you tagged along while I try to find a way out of this place. You in?”

 

He hadn’t realized he knew how to smile as well.

 

“Yes.”


	2. Chapter 2

A number of things immediately became clear to him.

 

The first several had to do with his companion and how sorely he had misjudged her. Lily, daughter of none, a race unto herself, indifferent goddess wearing the skin of something seemingly mortal, was absolutely terrifying.

 

Of course, he had known she was powerful, he would have to be blind not to notice the aura of wild power surrounding her; almost more blinding than the sun itself. And true, he’d mused to himself, that she was more powerful than any being currently walking the earth, perhaps even more than Sauron and the Valar themselves. But it was one thing to think such things and another to have the stone-cold realization plummet through your suddenly non-metaphorical stomach.

 

When Lily grabbed his hand, plunged them through all barriers of time and space, back into the unassuming nigh backwater town of Bree in front of that thrice damned Prancing Pony sign, and when questioned just shrugged and explained, “I didn’t want to climb out of a pit,” he realized that if she had half the mind or inclination to Lily probably could have conquered Arda long before Elrond, Sauron, Saruman, or any others could gather troops to stop her.

 

And more, perhaps worse, Lily seemed utterly indifferent to this fact.

 

(And with that realization was the stunned, alarmed, realization that he should probably not allow Lily to leave or at the very least not be recruited for the enemy. If he made it back to Mordor, if he was returned to Sauron, and if Lily had decided to side with Rivendell then he might very well have returned to that same situation he had been in three thousand years ago. Furthermore, if it was Sauron in his place, as a manifestation of Sauron’s will and power, it was his obligation to see to it that such a resource was firmly within Mordor’s grasp. But how did one tempt something like Lily?

 

More, why had it not occurred to him to do so, to truly recruit her, until now?)

 

However, while perhaps the most daunting of his realizations, they were not the only ones. The next several were not, thankfully, ones he should have realized before or at least come to terms with, but they were alarming in their own right. One was that, despite having lived in the minds of his bearers (all who had limbs, fingers, heartbeats, etc.), there was a clear difference between watching a body being operated and operating it yourself. Walking, for example, was much harder than it looked, as was climbing stairs, operating door knobs, and basically anything of immediate use.

 

All these things men, dwarves, elves, goblins, orcs, and even hobbits seemed to do so instinctively, such that even a halfwit could perform them with ease, seemed an effort on par with the fellowship’s doomed trek through the balrog filled mines of Moria.

 

(He learned, through blood sweat and tears, that he despised stairs.)

 

However, surprisingly, what managed to be more alarming than his lack of coordination and Lily’s seemingly all-consuming power, was that he hadn’t quite realized how the Ring’s allure would translate to this mobile, expressive, elven, container he found himself in. Namely, the allure didn’t go away, and instead of finding themselves staring at what they saw as a ring they… Well…

 

“Please, let me bear your children!”

 

It was the inn keeper’s wife, red-cheeked, staring at him with wide, glazed, eyes, her mouth hanging open a little, and ringing her hands as if trying to keep herself from pawing at him. She paid no mind to Lily, and more alarmingly, no mind to the small pebble of gold that Lily had placed onto the counter for a room fee.

 

Lily’s eyebrows raised, thankfully not understanding the words but certainly understanding the tone, she glanced at him, while he said nothing, that realization sinking in again that… Oh… He was actually expected to talk to these people now.

 

When he had been a ring, a piece of jewelry, not even designed to have thought, memory, or opinions he hadn’t given much… well… thought to his situation. People wanted the ring, he wanted them to want the ring, he had only two functions. One, was to survive. In order to ensure Sauron’s survival, he too must survive, and despite the fact that there was only one place where he might be destroyed within those first moments with Isildur this had proved imperative. And, the second, but no less important, was to return to Sauron wherever his spirit happened to lurk.

 

The consequences his actions had on sentient beings had meant nothing to him, except that it was useful, necessary for his own survival.

 

Suddenly he had the image of being trapped with Smeagol for centuries in a cave, listening to him eat raw fish and that wretched ‘gollum’ noise, only instead of a golden ring that can bide its time, that has no thoughts and therefore no patience to be tried and lost, he was in the form of a man twiddling his thumbs and expected to make conversation with this thing.

 

The woman had agreed to let them stay for free, and give them free meals, for absolutely no reason other than she was lucky enough to have caught her eyes on his face.

 

Point being, by the time he had managed to crawl up the stairs and into the room, half supported by Lily (who was far too short for such a venture) he had decided that he was done for the day.

 

Lily, unfortunately, hadn’t, “So, I’ve actually been meaning to ask about that.”

 

He looked up, caught her leaning against a wall, arms crossed, legs angled, looking more like a casual ranger (all poised, relaxed, lethality) than an adolescent girl not yet even on the cusp of womanhood, and her eyes looking at him in speculation.

 

“About what?” His voice, he had not noticed earlier, had a strange bell-like quality to it, more so than even your average elf’s.

 

“Well, I guess the woman downstairs. Except, it’s not just her, is it? I mean there was that Gollum thing, plus Boromir was acting spazzy some of the time… I mean, according to you, and everyone, no one could carry you because… Are you made of _crack?_ ” Lily looked doubtful of her own words, those eyebrows still raised dubiously, but it was clear she expected some sort of an answer in an understandable format.

 

“What?” He repeated, dumbly, then stammered out, “I do not know of this… _crack._ I am, I compel, I draw in, I…”

 

“So you’re totally made of magical _crack._ ” Lily concluded, looking more certain of herself, “Shiny, gold, magical, will-sucking, _crack._ ”

 

He wasn’t entirely sure what this crack was, the image was something stronger and more altering than the strongest of ales, if not twice as degrading and having to do something with extreme poverty and… whatever a _gangbanger_ was, but all the same he felt as if he should be grossly insulted, “I am not made of _crack!_ ”

 

“Well, since you’re a person now, and I really didn’t want to call you my precious in the first place, I’m gonna call you Cracker Jack _._ ”

 

That sounded, somehow, even more insulting than the last thing he’d heard, and he had the strangest feeling, that somewhere in that river of Lily’s thoughts, beneath the rush of nigh unintelligible impressions, images, thoughts, and memories, something was laughing at him.

 

Something, thought that this was all beyond ironic, and hilarious.

 

He felt his face burn, he felt the words of his binding burning into his pale skin, and for a moment the room grew dark yet hot, too hot, like standing in the great furnace of his own creation, but then, then it passed, he looked down at his pale unfamiliar hands, and had the strangest sensation of, “Why not?”

 

So, he smiled at the girl, watched her blink in momentary confusion, as if she had expected him to be upset, and hobbled his way to the nearest mirror. There he caught sight of this new form, of himself. It was not the younger Sauron who stared back at him, someone equally elfin and pale certainly, but where Sauron had been dark and cold the man in the mirror was exotic even by an elf or maia’s standards. His hair thick, chaotic, each strand seemingly spun from the gold that had been the ring, and his eyes held the stirred embers that were the fires of Mordor, while the words wrapped themselves down his skin, looping over each other, disappearing as his ire faded.

 

Looking at this strange, alluring, man, one who could not climb stairs, open doorknobs, who was propositioned by mere inn keepers, and who had thrown himself over the abyss for a feeling he still could not comprehend, he could only say, “It does fit, after all.”

 

(He did not ask where she intended to go next, if it was east or west, and he did not ask if she would come with him as he made his way home, he did not dare.)

 

* * *

 

 

Lily, it seemed, was in no hurry to go anywhere. Weeks on the road, through fields, mountains, and mines had left her exhausted and in little mood to go anywhere. She proceeded to spend the next week and a half, sleeping half the day away, wandering around Bree, and pursuing locally bought, poor quality, maps with vague interest.

 

Fortunately, this gave him enough time to at least get some bearings on his new form. While uncoordinated, easily tripping over stones and through doorways, he at least could climb stairs and no longer broke every quill he pressed to paper. He began, slowly but surely, to appreciate the mortal form. As a ring he’d been so dependent on the whims of his bearers, so tied to them, now with distant alarm he realized that there was nothing holding him to anything anymore.

 

He could walk, hell he could run, if there was somewhere he wanted to go or see or do he could simply do it. He was so amazed upon his discovery he’d remained sitting in the Prancing Pony’s pub for hours, hardly believing that he really could leave any time he wanted, it hardly seemed possible.

 

More, he could talk, converse, interact in more ways than simply want and temptation. He had not realized how often he had been curious, had a vague nagging desire to know something, and had resigned himself to be patient for the answer would surely come eventually… Now he could simply ask.

 

It was a startling and strange realization.

 

Unfortunately, this also left him far too much time to think. Thinking, a pastime he had never had before, he didn’t like it.

 

He didn’t like this incessant, pacing, self-reflection he found himself dragged into as if it were a mire. Looking back over memories and asking, why, why, why did you act as you did, are you a great fool? He should have stayed with Frodo, the fellowship, Boromir, such a path was predictable and almost assured for they were headed to the very heart of Sauron’s kingdom. No, he was not lost in the pit of Moria, it was not a mistake, merely a detour. And truly, he would never have known the joy of having legs had he not jumped.

 

But what if it hadn’t been that simple, what if he hadn’t been able to climb out, what if he had been stuck down there and she was dead and…

 

And what the hell was she? True, the Valar had brought those who departed for the distant realm back before, Glorifindel was one such warrior but Lily’s rather anticlimactic resurrection… It hadn’t been like that at all.

 

And why was she so intent on leaving anyway?  This other world, perhaps in the stars themselves, that she always wanted to get back to. What was so important there that all other goals were set aside, that the fate of Arda itself, was set aside so that she could fulfil it?

 

Not helping these festering thoughts was the reaction of the men and women in the town of Bree. If Lily had been noticed before, for her youth, her money, her foreign clothing, and her extravagance it was nothing compared to the attention he himself was receiving. Long eyes, glazed looks, stray fingers brushing his hair and skin, and intoxication only spurring ever onwards.

 

Pubs were very dangerous places, he discovered, along with the fact that he didn’t like people touching him.

 

At all.

 

Six o’clock in the evening, in the midst of dinner, in the Prancing Pony’s beloved pub, where even a hobbit could buy a pint of ale, and he was pressed against a wall, Lily blocking him from the dancing drunken peasantry, trying to avoid making eye contact with anyone.

 

Eye contact, he’d also learned, was very dangerous.

 

However, it wasn’t working, “Hello, strangers… Oh glorious elven strangers.”

 

There was a man half slumped against their table, his face flushed, reaching out towards the fine golden strands of the Ring’s hair. He had replaced the tavern wench who had spent far too long waiting for their order, who while old enough for a human had that charming naïve edge to her thoughts that just made the Ring very uncomfortable when combined with the fact that she was attempting to seduce him.

 

“I have no words.” Lily said, in her native tongue, watching all of this with raised eyebrows, as she watched every single interaction he had with anyone with raised eyebrows, “You, Cracker Jack, are a king among all Casanovas.”

 

He had no idea what that meant, but he suspected it was not flattering, or if it was flattering then it really should not be.

 

Carefully, more gently then he felt he needed to be, he pushed the man off the table, where he proceeded to lie in a useless drunken heap on the floor, too overpowered by his allure to even roll onto his stomach and crawl away like a dog.

 

Truly, there were no words, not for him.

 

Actually, there were words, there were many words, “You know, Lily, I think I’m ready to leave Bree. I’ve had my fill of… small backwater pubs to last me a millennium and a half.”

 

Lily blinked at him, then looked down at the man on the floor, who was now attempting to reach for the Ring’s hair again, “I don’t know man, this is weird, but I think I could watch this all day. It’s like, watching a _train wreck_ , but even more so. It’s like watching a _train wreck_ involving fifty trains at the same time, because _Godzilla_ is eating all of the trains.”

 

Lily did not explain how or why a giant, metropolis crushing, lizard from the great sea would ever be devouring horseless extremely large carriages and how this related to his current extremely unfortunate situation.

 

“None the less I am done watching my… Lizard carriage wrecks _._ ” He grimaced, that was particularly ineloquent, but then Lily seemed to have something against eloquence. Oh, she could be poetic when it suited her, but on a regular basis, she seemed to take great pride in frankly bizarre turns of phrase and her own unique brand of speaking.

 

His eyes narrowed as he looked at her, “Besides, aren’t you the one who was desperate to return to your home?”

 

Her eyebrows raised, she sipped her drink with a grimace, unused to the taste of alcohol but too wise to ask for the diseased death that was water in these towns of Men, “Desperate _?_ ”

 

“That is your goal, isn’t it?”

 

She shrugged, “Sure, but that doesn’t make me desperate. I mean, I’m not in a huge rush all things considered… There’s actually a lot about _England_ I hate. I mean, I haven’t had to go to Potions in months, that’s amazing. Oh, and I haven’t had to stab any of my professors, or get my head bashed in by said professors, and I haven’t had to do the whole Jesus thing… It’s been very nice. I mean, aside from nobody speaking English, no modern amenities, and hiking across the countryside for mystical quests that no one has really explained I have no complaints.”

 

There was much he could say about that, much he could ask even, as there were many things he did not truly understand about Lily. However, he’d discovered that he did have a temper and it did have a limit, so he couldn’t help but say, “You mean you failed to understand the entire purpose of our trek to Mordor? That entire time?”

 

“Well, it was about you, and a dark lord, and…” Lily trailed off, a blank expression on her face, one which perfectly matched her lack of an answer.

 

“You were travelling to Mordor to destroy me, Lily! The quest was to destroy Sauron’s last link to life, the One True Ring, by throwing it into the pits of Mount Doom where it was forged! What did you think we were doing?”

 

Lily held up her hands in a universal sign of surrender, “…I stopped believing that there needs to be a logical reason behind the things people tell me I must do for the fate of the world. It’s made my life much easier. But wait… Isn’t that where you want to go?”

 

“The dark lord also resides in Mordor _._ ”

 

“ _…_ So you wanted the fellowship to return you to Mordor _._ ” Lily said slowly, piecing everything together.

 

“Yes _._ ”

 

“Even though the fellowship wanted to destroy you by throwing you in a giant mountain inside of Mordor _._ ”

 

He laughed, almost despite himself, picturing the young hobbit making it so far as Mount Doom after passing through the black gates, “Oh, believe me, they would never have made it so far as that _._ ”

 

“…Still, seems kind of inefficient and weird. You know, since you can apparently turn into a person… Why didn’t you just do that and walk to Mordor yourself?”

 

He paused, a feeling of dead alarm passing through him, found himself dumbly staring back at her and had the alarming though that somehow he’d never thought of that. He’d spent so long just being a thing that he’d… He’d never realized he could just grow legs, reshape himself, and walk there.

 

And now that he thought of it he couldn’t help but feel that, despite all of Sauron’s intellect, the Ring was something of an idiot.

 

“Right, well, since we’re back in Bree… Do you want to go to Rivendell first or Isengard _?_ ”

 

“Oh, Isengard, most definitely.” Although his hair and eyes had changed, parts of his form remained the same, and were suspicious enough that they would attract unwanted attention from Elrond.

 

That and, as Lily might put it, all elves knew other elves and nobody unfamiliar such as himself would simply appear out of the ether with good intentions.

 

_“_ You sure, it’s full of evil wizards and whatever those beefy rabid shirtless men are that wear the pelts of their slain enemies.”

 

“Those would be orcs… But yes, we should still probably go to Isengard first and save Rivendell as a… Last resort.”

 

* * *

 

 

The journey to Isengard was a strange one, if only because the Fellowship so clearly avoided this path. While within the sight of the two towers, when attempting the gap of Rohan, then the mountain pass, and finally Moria they did not once stray close to the river Isen for fear of Sauruman’s forces. And years ago, with Isildur, he had remained within the realm of Gondor and the king had fallen to the east of the Misty Mountains. As such, this was not a path he had walked before, following Lily’s purchased and scribbled map and he found himself discomfited by it.

 

The ghosts of his bearers, Isildur, Smeagol, Bilbo, and even Frodo did not walk beside him, did not even hint at their presence, and without them as he trekked through the wilderness he felt like something of a ghost himself. As if, should he blink, or should Lily blink, then he would fade into nothingness.

 

Perhaps it was this strange feeling, coursing through his stomach and gripping at his slow beating heart, or perhaps it was something he himself could not recognize but either way he found himself gripped by the incessant need to chatter.

 

Whether they were making camp, hidden behind Lily’s magic wards from the eyes of Saruman’s rapidly growing orc army, or else skirting the edges of the great mountain range he would babble away and Lily would look back with raised eyebrows and a somewhat dubious expression.

 

(However, whatever this feeling was, it was still far superior than rotting in Bree being groped by mannish scum.)

 

“What do you think Frodo and the gang are up to now anyways?”

 

They had only just passed through Dunland, gathering supplies, the people looking haggard and terrified, their eyes darting everywhere and many planning to travel further north towards Rivendell and away for the dark wizard’s tower so close to the south along the very same river that had kept their town thriving for hundreds of years.

 

Now they were within the shadow of Isengard, not quite visible yet, but the aura of Sauruman’s menace and the cries of the orcs and the slain forests were palpable.

 

And he wondered how he had ever been so indifferent to sound of suffering.

 

He paused, glanced at Lily, feeling his eyes glow with his own uncertainty and the words once more begin to etch themselves into his skin beneath layers of clothing, “I do not know… They would have most likely made their way to Lothlorien, close to where we would have exited the mountains. There they would seek guidance from the elf-witch Galadriel…”

 

And perhaps Galadriel knew of his location now, perhaps she felt his presence as a stain to the west, travelling swiftly towards Isengard. They would cross back over the mountains though, and they could not pass through the mines now, not with the bridge of Khazad Dûm crumbled beneath a balrog, and they dare not take the pass of Rohan as they dared not to take it before. But that would take time, and they would have to counter Saruman’s magic without Lily’s own powers to aid them. This would be a trial, perhaps even impossible, and could well take them many weeks.

 

Weeks they did not have given his and Lily’s pace towards the dark tower and her own ability to teleport.

 

“Whatever their intentions, even if they know my form, they will be far too late to do anything about it.”

 

Lily stared at him for a moment, her eyes unreadable, and at once he wondered if that was not quite what she had meant, if she had been asking after something else entirely, “Why are they so desperate to find you?”

 

Had he never told her? Certainly, Elrond had tried to convey it, had managed to get something across to her, but there had always been this central lack of understanding with her. She had been told that the ring must be destroyed, that it must be taken to Mordor, that the dark lord would use it against them…

 

He had assumed she understood, that she had the same wordless understanding that Frodo had had and even Bilbo before him when Sauron was only a shadow growing thick in Mirkwood, “When I return to Sauron, the great war for the fate of the world, of this age, will have been won and all races of men, elves, and dwarves will suffer for it. Without the ring he is but a shadow of what he once was, an all-seeing eye, but little else; but I am a being housing great power.”

 

He looked at his fingers, glowing like starlight in the twilight, and they would glow bright still under the light of the new moon such that even the stars themselves might pale in comparison. The fires of Mordor which forged him, burned beneath his pale skin, and should he be cut he had no doubt that it would be flame instead of blood coursing inside his veins.

 

“You really are the _Ark of the Covenant_.”

 

A slow, almost unwilling smile, “I thought I was relatively cheap addictive white powder which destroys the mind and leaves nothing but craving.”

 

She did not smile in return, instead remained very stoic, unusually sober, “You’re a destroyer of worlds in your own right.”

 

His smile faded, slipped from him, and at once he felt colder than he should, “I do not mean to be.”

 

“We’re almost never what we mean to be, just what we are, and that’s not always pleasant.” Lily said, “After all, I never meant to be Wizard Jesus, that doesn’t mean I can go around denying it either.”

 

He paused then, caught on that word, the name she’d referenced several times, “Jesus, you’ve mentioned him before.”

 

“Oh, right, I guess I never really got around to that one. It’s sort of a long story, or a short one… I guess it depends on the amount of detail you want to go into.” Lily said, all at once her brash casual nature returning as if the great shadow that had fallen over their conversation had not occurred at all.

 

“We have time, after all, we will not travel again until daybreak.”

 

He was growing conflicted, sitting under the shadow of Isengard, and while Saruman was technically on his side that did not mean he trusted the wizard completely. Best to appear in daylight, rather than at night, when orcs were more in their element.

 

“Hm, well, what to say…” Lily trailed off, thinking back, and started, “It’s a story about a carpenter who also happened to be the prophesized son of God.

 

For the last three years of his life he wandered about the countryside, an occupied country taken over by a great empire, and preached about God and acceptance and promoted a softer and more forgiving religion than they’d had before. He also performed some rather alarming miracles such as raising the dead, healing _leprosy_ , turning water into wine, and more along the way and gained himself quite the reputation as a prophet.

 

But he also claimed he was the son of God, and perhaps he was, but either way the country banded around him in a way they had never done any _messiah_ before him and the religious leaders of the country began to grow nervous. When he reached _Jerusalem_ , they had decided that he must be _crucified_ , nailed to a post like a criminal, and made an example of.

 

Only, he knew, even before he reached the city, that he would die as soon as he set foot in there. But he did anyways, even though his friends betrayed him, denied him, even when he was flogged and given a crown of thorns, he did it anyway. And he died up there, told God to forgive them, because they didn’t know what they were doing…” Lily paused, glancing at him for a moment, before continuing, “Three days later he rose from the dead and reassured his followers and told them to tell his story and spread the word of God. That his death would not be in vain for it would save humanity. Then he left.”

 

It was a strange tale, shorter than he expected, and he thought that Lily no doubt was leaving many details out in her retelling. Yet even so there is something haunting about this tale of a man, a god among mortal men, who foresaw his own demise and yet did nothing for the sake of his people.

 

“And you are like this Jesus?”

 

“Only in the extremely literal sense of rising from the dead and being declared the _messiah_ of my people for defying death and blowing up a dark lord… Although, now that I think about it, there is a prophecy floating around there somewhere. If I was a little more into carpentry I would be very much Wizard Jesus, I mean, more than I already am.” She seemed a little stunned by that, like she’d never considered it from that angle before.

 

She sighed, offered him a small smile, “Hardly important now though, after all, I’m not Wizard Jesus here, am I?”

 

Shortly afterwards she curled up and drifted off to sleep, leaving him to stare up at the black, smoke filled sky, and think over her words of a carpenter, the fate of the fellowship, and a mysterious object of great object and great destruction.

 

* * *

 

 

“You know, there’s this place in my world, in _America_ , called _Pittsburg_ … I’m pretty sure this is what _Pittsburg_ looks like.” Lily commented to him, and he had no idea what Pittsburg was, but he had the image of somewhere dark, gray, and covered in ash and soot from great steel factories and the blackened faces of those who worked there.

 

And staring at Isengard, he could hardly say he disagreed.

 

Gone was the clear water of the river, now pumped into a great black pit that served as the cradle for Saruman’s army of orcs, the forest that had surrounded Isengard was now gone, stripped bare, and the earth was blackened so that it looked no different than the infertile poisonous terrain of Mordor itself. 

 

From the black depths, fire would occasionally flare, and there were great cries and the sounds of thousands of whips and charges to keep digging, harder, faster, deeper, and the scent of blood, sulfur, and death in the air.

 

“Well, this is… delightful. I can see why Gandalf wanted to get out of here so badly.” Lily paused, her eyes glancing towards the roof, “Although, the roof doesn’t look so bad, I mean, compared to down here anyways. He had something of a view, the mountains are nice.”

 

He and Lily just continued to stare, neither stepping forward, and for a moment almost nonsensically he had the bizarre urge to tell her that they should turn around, return the shire, or maybe just head further east, to Mordor themselves and he could leave it to her to visit Galadriel while he…

 

While he kept walking.

 

“No time like the present, I suppose, come on Cracker Jack, we’re wasting daylight here.” Lily said, slapping him on the back and causing him to pitch forward and almost lose his balance, then she marched with far too much confidence given their surroundings, towards the entrance of the tower.

 

He hurried after her, “Lily, I don’t think…”

 

“Oh, that is… that is a severed head, that is nice. I haven’t seen one of those since Albania, and then, you know… Well, Albania was an interesting place.” Lily commented, skirting about the edge of the gaping hole carefully, while he desperately tried to keep his balance and keep from pitching in, not quite as dexterous as an elf should be yet.

 

“Listen, Lily, I am beginning to think…”

 

“Does he not have a door?” Lily asked, eyeing the tower and stopping quite suddenly, staring, and seeing the fact that Saruman appeared to have sealed the door to the tower. Only a single balcony remained, looking out towards the east and overlooking the creation of his own army.

 

Abruptly he gripped her shoulders, “Listen to me, Lily, this man is very dangerous. I am beginning to rethink this…”

 

Lily brushed off his hands, offered him a dry look, “Please, I am immortal. There isn’t much he can do to me no matter how much he might want to. Besides, you’re the one who suggested Isengard.”

 

But he was wrong, he shouldn’t have done it, why had he done it? Of course, because it was for his own benefit, his own pressing need to return to Sauron. And why should he question that now? Why should he pause and continually delay himself, prolong this journey, for this strange, immortal, flippant, and infuriating girl?

 

“Fine, go then, let us enter the wizard’s tower.”

 

She paused, looked at him with raised eyebrows, and commented, “You are really channeling your inner Lenin today.”

 

Before she could explain what that meant though she offered an arm towards him, smiled, and said, “It’ll be fine, I promise.”

 

With hesitation, he wound his arm in hers, felt that strange disorienting flight through space and time, and then there they were, on top of the balcony, overlooking the charred earth where they had previously been standing.

 

“See, perfectly fine.”

 

He felt his eyes pulled away from her, turned his head over his shoulder, where covered in cloth a great glass ball sat upon a pedestal, and beneath it, barely concealed, the great fiery eye rested with only a thin layer of cloth preventing it from seeing him.

 

A palantir, a very old and dangerous tool, one Sauron had long since taken control of before Saruman the white had ever come by it.

 

All he had to do was lift the velvet, toss it to the side, and press his hands to the glass.

 

And he would be home, free, he would be whole once again and it would finally be done…

 

“What are you doing?”

 

He paused, he hadn’t realized he’d walked away from her, towards the pedestal, so close that he could now almost touch it, his fingertips so close to the cloth covering it. His mouth became dry, he turned back to her, caught her expression and…

 

And it was one he had never seen on her face, one he hadn’t realized she could wear, because it was so aware and piercing. She saw everything he was, every thought and dream and desire he had, and she knew what he was about to do and she was resigned to it.

 

An expression he himself might have worn, when regarding his bearers, had he been capable of it.

 

(Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.)

 

“I…” He closed his eyes, swayed, almost stumbled backwards a step, but then he faltered again, stood his ground, and closed his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to see anything, “I must go home, Lily.”

 

He turned back towards her completely, motioning to himself, “I am worn, Lily, spread thin like…”

 

(Like butter spread over too much bread, scraped thin…)

 

She didn’t say anything, didn’t tell him to go, didn’t tell him to say, her eyes moved to the glass ball and stared at it flatly, and before he could argue any more (in favor of leaving or staying or simply expanding upon how long three thousand years truly was), he felt another presence.

 

Saruman stood in the entrance to the room, dark eyes moving over the pair of them, taking them in with cold dark eyes, before walking in himself, the dark staff tapping loudly against the black marble floor of the tower.

 

He backed up, stood back with Lily, unconsciously reaching for her hand and gripping it in his. She did not grip his back.

 

“You are the witch who travelled with the fellowship, then fell in the pits of Moria, I have heard much about you.” Saruman said, his eyes landing on Lily’s, and Lily simply stared flatly back.

 

“ _Tell him that I want to talk to him about portals to other worlds,_ ” Lily said, in her own native tongue (although she’d never truly switched, it was only now that it seemed significant, that he noted that she wasn’t speaking Westron as she had always not spoken Westron), and he turned to stare at her, but she didn’t look back at him, and with a sinking horror he realized that he had somehow forgotten.

 

Amid his own plans, his own temptation to simply leave and get it done with, he had somehow forgotten that Lily too was searching for a way back to her homeland.

 

He said nothing, his eyes flicking back to Saruman, who was looking at him with a furrowed brow, as if trying to decipher just who this unfamiliar immortal being might be, standing beside the foreign witch, when there were no new faces among the elves.

 

“ _Tell him that I want to go home._ ”

 

He took a deep breath, summoned the fire within his own spirit, and cut off all this useless ache and indecision, his own stab of fear and restlessness, and forced it down where he could not even hope to think of it, “This is Lily, of _England_ , a place very far from this one and possibly in the stars themselves and she wishes to find a road to there.”

 

But Saruman didn’t even spare Lily a glance, his eyes still focused solely on what had once been the ring, a strange expression growing on his features, “And you?”

 

And here it was, just tell him, just tell him and lift the cloth and you’ll be on your way. No more bearers, no more of these thoughts and feelings and doubts, just oblivion, (no completion, this was for Sauron, for the body, he didn’t factor into this, he wasn’t supposed to be anything), for eternity.

 

But that was not what he said, “I am irrelevant.”

 

The man didn’t look convinced, he didn’t even turn his attention to Lily, who was now beginning to get that impatient look that usually predated some disaster, and instead kept roving his eyes over the golden elven stranger, over and over again as if searching for something.

 

“ _…He’s staring._ ” Lily commented, as if this was supposed to imply something else, something unnerving and unnatrual, but neither of them knew how to describe it.

 

And there was something strange about this, because Lily commanded attention, she burned like the sun, everything turned toward her, whether in hatred or compassion she drew the eye. More Saruman had reason to focus on her, they had just broken into his tower after all, had passed by an entire army without a scratch on them and he knew her at a glance. When he had entered, in that first moment, he had asked about Lily. Except now it was as if Lily wasn’t even in the room, or if she was, then she was an obnoxious distraction at best, nothing more than the child she appeared as.

 

“ _He’s still staring._ ” Lily commented, which he was perfectly aware of this, he knew perfectly well the man was staring and…

 

And he and Lily looked at each other, appearing to realize the same thing at the same time, and looked back to Saruman, fully under the influence of the allure. Somehow it came out in English, in Lily’s tongue, “ _Goddammit!_ ”

 

Lily burst out into hysterics, clutching her sides, and this at least seemed to startle Saruman enough to at the very least glance at her. Although it was in disdain, disapproval, as if Lily was embarrassing herself there when Saruman had been two steps from drooling, petting his hair, and asking if he could bear the one true ring’s future children.

 

“This is not funny!” He shouted down at Lily, somehow now flipping into Westron unintentionally, and even though his tone was perfectly clear she seemed wholly indifferent to his own embarrassment and growing rage. In fact, she was ignoring him just as completely as Saruman appeared to be ignoring her, Saruman’s eyes were drawn once again to the ring.

 

Except, glancing down at his hand, in alarm, he noticed that the words, those words of sacred binding and prophecy, were once again writing themselves in fire upon his pale skin in the dark tongue.

 

“One ring to rule them all…” Saruman started, reading the glowing words, stepping involuntarily closer, and his eyes lighting up in realization, stunned horror, and avarice all at once, “The one ring, the one ring in mortal flesh…”

 

“Lily! Get up!”

 

Lily just kept laughing, Saruman drew closer, his hand so close to touching, and there was rage, mortification and shame, and something deeper, a deep primal fear of isolation and imprisonment, and the words burned so brightly that they might have been blinding.

 

He grabbed onto Lily’s hand, pulled her up, and embraced her, pouring his power into her as he had all his bearers before her and Saruman, the dark tower, the river Isen, the mountains, and all of Arda seemed to disappear completely.

 

* * *

 

 

In many ways, when a bearer wore the ring, it was as if they were being pulled into his own soul. They became dazed, the world tilted and grew surreal, and they saw with his eyes and wielded his spirit as a great sword, but swords have two edges and all those who had held him aloft had cut themselves just as they had their enemies.

 

Bilbo Baggins had only dipped his feet in, once or twice, had skirted around this great reserve of power and so had kept his sanity for perhaps far longer than he should have. Bilbo grew to love the ring, was teetering on the edge of madness by those last days, but he had always had an edge of caution that Smeagol and Isildur had lacked.

 

Frodo Baggins, well, Frodo had been duly warned.

 

None of that had prepared him for Lily.

 

At once it seemed as if he was in two places, on the outside, staring out at Saruman, a strange chaotic mix of his own impressions as well as Lily’s, staring up at him in green eyes ringed red about the iris, in a form that was at once both hers and his, the script of Mordor pulsing in time with her heartbeat and the lightning bolt scar upon their forehead glowing brightly.

 

But he was also somewhere else entirely, falling into Lily, past her conscious thoughts and impressions, past shallow memory, pulled to the core of her mind by that great and overwhelming power, crushing him just as surely as gravity or any other great force.

 

Then there was a shoe pressing onto his back, pressing him into carpeted floor of a place he did not remember being, and the unfamiliar voice of a man speaking in Lily’s tongue, “There are few people that I hate before ever having talked with them personally. Dislike, certainly, but loathe… Well, suffice to say even I can withhold judgement on occasion.”

 

His eyes darted upwards, past his shoulder, and he could make out the profile of a man, tall for a human, standing over him, but his features were obscured by shadow and it was impossible for him to tell exactly what this man looked like, “Congratulations, Cracker Jack, you’ve managed to force me to reevaluate my own character. It is possible for me to hate someone more than Albus Dumbledore before even having a chance to spit in their face.”

 

The ring was kicked then in the stomach, the force of the blow sending him rolling, giving him the momentum he needed to stand even while winded. The man was human, curiously fine featured for a man, and with a strange pale blue for eyes that was normally seen only in elves or those few humans descended from them, but human none the less.

 

He also had an air of menace to him that the ring had not often seen in men, oh that was not to say he had not crossed paths with the wretched now and then, but there was a density to the shadows of this man’s aura that were not to be trifled with.

 

“Strange, I can’t ever say we’ve met.” He commented, straightening himself as he continued to evaluate the man.

 

The man scoffed, and at once the intensity to the atmosphere lifted, and the feeling of an impending battle breaking out between them disappeared, “Not directly, we have a mutual acquaintance. One who is, as we speak, flooding the great tower of Isengard and singlehandedly obliterating his army.”

 

Lily, he was speaking of Lily, who else could it possibly be, but…

 

“If you want to stop it I suggest you leave rather quickly...” The man trailed off, head tilted slightly, eyes glazed, and then amended, “Never mind, it’s already too late for the wizard.”

 

The man looked pleased by this, as if he expected the ring to care, which perhaps he should. After all, Saruman was an ally, more than an ally, between the two towers victory was all but assured for Sauron. The loss of Saruman and his army would mean the loss of the west, the loss of Rohan.

 

Yet, somehow, he didn’t truly care. Instead he was focused on this strange place, a transient shifting place of both shadows and light, memory drifting in the dust through the room and… “This is Lily’s mind.” It was more than her mind, it was her very being, the center of herself.

 

“Congratulations, you’ve managed to put two and two together.” The man snapped, his expression rather churlish, and then motioned with his head towards one of the walls and a door which materialized at his motion, “Now get out.”

 

He didn’t move, eyes narrowing at this strange man, “And what of you? Why is it that you are lingering inside Lily’s mind?”

 

The man smiled at him, a seemingly pleasant thing, but with a dark edge just visible beneath it, “I have no choice in the matter, not all of us can make bodies for ourselves out of nothing.”

 

Before he could enquire what, exactly this was supposed to mean the man was speaking again, “And I’m not looking for roommates either, especially the wide-eyed naïve fools of your variety.”

 

He was somewhat offended by that, in spite of only recently not having the capability of having his intelligence questioned he was insulted, “You do realize that if you were not shielded by Lily’s mind you would be incapable of any rational thought in my presence at all.”

 

The man offered that thin smile, “That does not change the fact that you are a fool.”

 

“In what way?”

 

The man motioned towards their surroundings and all at once they shifted, displayed the great green plains of Rohan, the view they had seen from the pass before the crows had flown overhead, and the blackened sky to the east, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? The world, the grass, the flowers, the stars… Of course, there is that nasty black stain to the east, a sign of things to come, but surely that should not make us uncomfortable.”

 

He stood his ground, overlooking the plains, staring directly towards the east and Mordor, not allowing himself to falter as he stared at it now.

 

“Tell me, what is it that you think will happen once you rejoin your better half? Do you imagine he’ll be grateful? That he’ll clap you on your now very solid back and say, ‘Well done, son, I couldn’t have done it better myself?’ Do you think he’ll be pleased to see you, especially now that you stand so solidly on your own two feet?”

 

He said nothing, allowed himself to say nothing, and the man grinned, a grin so similar to Lily’s in her darkest moments, that grin of the great wolf prowling in the forests. Around them the plains blackened, overtaken by fire and war, and the sky grew black with the smoke of funeral pyres and forges.

 

“He will destroy you just as surely as any mountain. He will reduce you to nothing, take everything that makes you yourself, and leave only the soulless machine that you were behind. And you will spend eternity with only a distant memory that you once were more than you are while you watch the world burn and the stars burn out one by one.”

 

Beyond Gondor, beyond the mountains to the east, the glow of the great red eye and Mount Doom burned like a perpetually rising sun.

 

He did not close his eyes but he did swallow, and say softly, “You cannot know that.”

 

“And that is why you’re naïve, you can’t even admit what you are.” The man said, scoffing, arms crossed as he too stared into the east without hesitation or flinching.

 

“And what am I?”

 

“A thing of destruction.”

 

The plain disappeared and the dark room returned, the man turning away from the ring, “Of course, after three thousand years, I wonder if there’s any point blaming you. If I had to endure centuries of Peter Pettigrew, the rat, then I might contemplate burning the universe down too and surrendering myself to sweet oblivion. As it is, this is hardly my problem, and your trials to return home, well, it’s almost inspiring.”

 

He took in the ring’s now golden form, the blonde hair, pale skin marred by words of binding, and the burning eyes, and said, “Odysseus, Lily was very tempted to call you it at one point, and I must say it does suit you. If Odysseus had failed to content himself with the slaughter of the suitors after his wife’s hand, had turned his eyes to Greece, why your story might even be said to be identical.”

 

He moved towards the door, frowning, his ire a stoked and gurgling thing inside of him, and cast one final glance to the man’s far too smug expression. He offered the man one final, cheeky, grin, and noted, “And yet, I can’t help but notice, that I have a body and you don’t.”

 

And he walked out, smiling at the feeling of overwhelming, impotent, rage from the man he was leaving behind.

 

* * *

 

 

But that was only one aspect of himself, the truer part, the individual part thrown deep into Lily’s mind as he granted her the power that men had died and destroyed themselves over. There was another part, one far closer to the surface, which intertwined with her and forged their body into something tall, lean, androgynous, and new.

 

They glowed, not only from the words written on their skin and the scar in their forehead, but their skin itself, rose-gold hair, and eyes shone as if a sun had been lit from inside them, enough that Saruman had to squint and turn his head to the side to not be blinded by their light.

 

They tilted their head, searching, but the eye of Sauron was not upon them, not even through the palantir, as this was not the call of the ring but instead something new, foreign, unfamiliar, and pure in a way that the ring’s call had never been.

 

Then turning their eyes back to Saruman, they stated, plainly, far more honestly than he himself had ever stated anything in all his existence, “I just want to go home.”

 

Saruman brought his staff forward, staring at them for an instant, his expression twisting itself in rage and doubt and fear, and stated coldly, “Give me the ring, give me the ring to deliver to Sauron, and you will go home. No matter where that might be, no matter how far, I will send you there.”

 

He held out his hand towards them, gripping the staff tightly with the other, and they stared at it. They both noted that it was empty.

 

He’s lying, the ring thought, they could taste it in the air, the avarice was so heady. He would keep the ring for himself, or attempt to, but with a palantir over his shoulder and Sauron watching him so keenly this would be a difficult task.

 

He wouldn’t send her home either, even if he was capable of it, the hubris was almost as tangible as the greed and ambition.

 

(Does he think we’re idiots? Lily questioned)

 

But neither of them were particularly surprised or upset by that, somehow they had known all along, it was why he had been so hesitant and she so distant. Isengard had not been the end for either of them, merely a detour, a way to delay conclusions they themselves did not wish to reach.

 

So, they asked instead after that thing that neither of them could quite tell, that seed of doubt that had sprouted and grown taller and taller ever since he had first met her, “And if he doesn’t want to go with you?” 

 

Saruman stared at them, his mouth twisting into a bitter smile, and chuckling at their naiveite, “It is not capable of wanting anything other than to return to its master.”

 

It is not a thing capable of wanting.

 

He had once thought that about himself, not so long ago, that he was mostly not capable of certain things. He had his talents, his uses, but beyond those he was merely a tool to better serve his creator and nothing more.

 

They opened their mouth, her words pouring through them, poignant and foreign yet somehow falling through his lips just as easily as they did hers, “Once, Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting about happily enjoying himself. He did not know that he was Zhou. Suddenly, he awoke, and was palpably Zhou. He did not know whether he was Zhou, who dreamed of being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he was Zhou. Now, there must be a difference between Zhou and the butterfly. This is called the transformation of things.”

 

(I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe…)

 

They paused, their eyes blazing, the words growing darker and more tumultuous on their skin, “I am more than capable of wanting!”

 

He wanted to go home, to know serenity, he wanted purpose, he wanted life and laughter, he wanted something beyond the bitter ennui that he had carved for himself for three thousand years, he wanted grass beneath his feet, bright blue sky overhead, he wanted to look down at her and see her smiling up at him, seeing him for more than a thing whose purpose is death and greed…

 

They summoned the sword, Lily’s sword taken from a hat in her old world, the great steel blade that had been overwhelming for her height but was more than suited to this shared flesh and cast it aloft, the light of their skin causing it to shine white, and they shouted across at Saruman with new purpose in their voice, “You have forgotten yourself, wizard! In your own lust for power, for security in this new age, you have made false labels for yourself and sundered all that made you an istär.”

 

With his staff Saruman sent a gale of magic against them, incanting old and ancient spells, but the magic fell flat against the force of their own power, gathering through them and into the blade, their eyes burning, “And frankly, you’ve somehow managed to surpass Snape in dickishness, which probably shouldn’t even be possible!”

 

And with those final words, and with an anticipatory smile, they launched themselves at the wizard, their power intermingling and lending speed beyond both men and elves, cutting through his shields and his magic as if it were no more than butter, and without hesitation drove the blade through his neck.

 

His staff fell, the sound of it against the marble deafening, and Saruman’s black eyes widened as his shaking fingers reached for the stained blade.

 

They pulled through, severing his spine and tendons, and watched as the body fell, the blood pooled beneath it and out towards their feet, and the head bounced away from it, unseeing.

 

They then turned towards the palantir, still covered with that velvet cloth, and concentrating their magic, tore it apart from the inside, causing it to cave inward into nothingness, until the pedestal was empty and the cloth limp.

 

They turned their eyes towards the balcony, stepped out and breathed in all the sulfur and blood that they had so dutifully attempted to ignore on the way in, and staring down into Saruman’s forge and the beds of mud where the orcs tore themselves into existence screaming, they saw all that should not exist in this or any world at all.

 

There was no true decision, they had both decided long before they even entered the tower, as they sat in its great shadow during their approach from the north. They stood on the railing of the balcony, looked down, and jumped feet first into the seemingly bottomless depths beneath them.

 

And it was as if a second sun had dawned in the deepest and darkest places of the earth.

 

* * *

 

 

The river had flooded the base of the tower, the forges, the orcs, the goblins, and all others now drowned beneath it, but no bodies rose to the surface now, most had been disintegrated in the fight, the light reducing them to dust before the blade could even cleave through their armor.

 

The air already felt cleaner, the black aura gone from the tower and with it that overwhelming sense of despair and hatred, and already the sun seemed to shine brighter and the grass greener than it had since Saruman had given up all pretense of fighting against Sauron.

 

And it was beautiful, he thought, as he stared at the scattered white clouds in the sky.

 

He and Lily stared out silently at the wreckage, neither entirely sure what to say, or if there should be anything to say at all. She stared ahead at the tower while his eyes were locked on his reflection, wavering within the water, and he wondered if he had always looked so haggard and uncertain in this new body of his.

 

Finally, he commented, “I met the man inside of your mind.”

 

“Oh, Lenin?” Lily said, looking over at him, before pausing and saying, “Oh, right, he’s mentioning that now… Uh, sorry that he doesn’t like you that much. It’s mostly the body thing.”

 

He smiled, but it was tinged with something bitter, and he said, “He said I am a great fool.”

 

Lily grimaced, “No, you’re just… very focused and not that concerned about collateral damage.”

 

Neither of them mentioned that they had caused more collateral damage in one hour than either of them had intended. Although, whether this was to be celebrated or regretted remained to be seen, or rather, his own feelings on the matter of sides remained to be seen.

 

“I am… concerned.” He said, haltingly, forcing himself to look away from his reflection and instead look at her, at her eyes which somehow held understanding despite her young age, “I am not indifferent, Lily.”

 

“I’m not really either, of course, I don’t think either of us intended to… Decapitate Saruman, flood Isengard, and slaughter thousands of orcs.” Lily said, grimacing once again, and adding, “Sorry about that, by the way, I know he was kind of… a thing.”

 

Lily, from what he could gather, mostly found the man a nuisance. It was because of Saruman, after all, that they had not been able to take the pass of Rohan and the most direct route to Mordor. The fact that he then went out of his way to ignore her, when she had shown her hand so blatantly in reaching Isengard, had only made her more irritated.

 

“I didn’t like him either.” He quickly added, fully aware that it had been him, far more than her, who had called for such drastic measures here.

 

“Right, so then, if you don’t mind my asking… What now?”

 

He sighed, cupping his chin in one hand and staring out at the wreckage, what now indeed? Saruman had been a product of that same question, or rather, his own inability to answer it. He had no excuses, not truly, either return to Sauron or not.

 

He no longer needed a bearer, no longer needed to be carted by some unwilling pawn, he had his own legs and could walk there if it suited him. He could leave at any time for the east.

 

But they had destroyed the palantir, no, he had destroyed the palantir. Lily had been indifferent to it, resigned perhaps, but the panic and need to remove it completely had been his.

 

He didn’t want to go back.

 

Although he should have realized it much sooner, should have been self-reflective enough to notice, it didn’t change the fact that it hit him like a bolt of lightning.

 

He didn’t want to go back, he didn’t want this war of Sauron’s, he didn’t want Rohan or Gondor destroyed, he didn’t want Arda covered in flames and turned dark, and he didn’t want to disappear.

 

He didn’t want to become a sliver of Sauron, turned blind deaf and dumb, reduced back into that thing he had been before Bree.

 

“I… I want to travel.” He stood, a smile growing on his lips, somehow feeling lighter than he had in… In ever, since his entire creation, as if the whole world had only just now opened itself to him, “I want to see everything, I want to see the peaks of the Misty Mountains, I want to see Lothlorien, I want to see Rohan and Gondor, I want see the Shire, and the Lonely Mountain, and even Mirkwood!”

 

He laughed in delight, throwing his arms outwards, “I want to talk to people and have them talk back at me! I want to see the best and brightest the world has to offer and see it all again. I want… everything, Lily, I want everything!”


	3. Chapter 3

Before them the great golden plains of Rohan stretched as far as the eye could see, the river Isen coiling about the base of the mountains like a great serpent, on the other side of them would be the kingdom of Gondor and if you followed the river to its head you would find the white city of Minas Tirith, the shining capital of man’s empire in Arda and that place where Isildur had once reigned as king three thousand years ago.

 

“Wait a minute, this looks familiar, too familiar…”

 

Of course, having stopped at the edge of the Gap of Rohan, him shaking rocks out of his boots and taking a moment to catch his breath as he contemplated how pitifully far they had come and how far they had left to go, while Lily sat cross-legged and peered out with narrow eyes into the horizon and on the whole seemingly entirely unaffected by their travels, he couldn’t help but bitterly think that he was the one now holding them up rather than the girl child not yet even a woman.

 

Now that a destination eluded him, now that the world had seemingly opened itself up to him, he could feel the past days of almost straight walking like lead inside of his legs. This metal feeling was also accompanied by an assortment of blisters, bruises, and small cuts.

 

Isildur had been a hardened man by the time he had claimed the ring, he had been through the war to end all great wars in Middle Earth, to him travelling, even on foot, had seemed nothing at all.

 

Smeagol’s flight into the mountains had been different, hurried, tortured, filled with doubt, denial, and insanity. By the time he crept under the earth he’d hardly been able to feel anything true anymore.

 

No, he found himself thinking back to Bilbo Baggins, Frodo he had not known long enough and the adrenaline had kept him afloat along with his friendships, but Bilbo Baggins in the beginning, cold, tired, friendless, a self-proclaimed burglar amongst dubious dwarves and a flighty wizard, not even a handkerchief left to him, skulking about Mirkwood for days on end thinking of a way out, well… He was starting to feel more than a little sympathetic to Bilbo’s plight.

 

“Oh goddammit, this is where we were that first time with all the bloody crows!”

 

He looked up to catch Lily pounding a hand down on the rock and looking far more frustrated than the situation demanded.

 

“Yes, Saruman’s spies, of course, I suppose we don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

 

The skies were a perfect, clear blue, only marred by small, stretched, clouds spattered here and there. No, there would be no more ravens, no more spells in the mountains, no more orcs… Nothing at all from the tower of Isengard.

 

He shook his head, clearing his thoughts, and continued, “Regardless, this is by far the easiest, and for most, the only path to the east.”

 

“…Are you serious?” Lily asked, then rubbed at her head, “You mean we trudged up that stupid mountain, then went through the mines of doom, when we could have gone here this whole time?”

 

He frowned, not quite annoyed, not quite sure how to feel annoyed or exasperated or any of those emotions that Bilbo would sometimes wear (for Isildur and Smeagol had always been quite different than Bilbo Baggins, already jagged and broken), but certainly on the edge of being tired of Lily’s… Liliness.

 

Still, all the same he took a deep breath to explain, “The pass was being watched closely by Saruman, and being in the shadow of Isengard, still by the banks of the river itself, he could have easily dispatched any number of his orcs to subdue the fellowship. The path over the mountains, too, became hazardous with his spell casting. And so, we had no choice but to face the mines and the balrog waiting inside.”

 

Lily, apparently, was unimpressed by this logic, “That is bullshit, Cracker Jack!” She waved a hand towards herself with a tad too much dramatic flair, “We just singlehandedly wiped out his entire army with nothing but a glowing sword! Clearly, the mines were overkill.”

 

“Yes, but they did not know the depths of your power, and they rightly feared to rely upon mine.”

 

He wondered where that had gotten them, to Lothlorien, perhaps, but now…

 

Lily seemed to give up then, dropping her hands back into her lap, then glaring out into the horizon, finally she said tersely, “You know, they’re always doing that back in _England_ too. They get uncomfortable and twitchy at the slightest thought of great power beyond their control or understanding. It’s why half of them don’t like me, I think, I make them far too nervous.”

 

Lily paused then, her glare softening, and with a sigh she added, “Well, that and I tried to auction all of their _wands_ that one time, which apparently ‘is not done’. And I did lose _Slytherin_ the _house_ _cup_ by an unprecedented amount… And the fact that I killed their _cult_ leader…”

 

Lily grasped at her head suddenly, rubbing at the scar on her forehead, and shouting out, “Shut up, Lenin, it’s not like you weren’t cultivating _Jones_ _Town_ the _British_ _wizard_ edition!”

 

Lenin, he'd almost managed to forget about the man called Lenin. Although, this was an accomplishment, as the man had almost seemed to have gone out of his way to make himself striking. He’d no doubt be insulted that he’d, even momentarily, slipped the ring’s mind.

 

“He does not agree with you then?”

 

Lily blinked, looked over at him, and dropped her hand from her forehead, “Uh, no, Lenin and I rarely agree on things. Well, he agrees that people seem to either worship me or else loathe me, and that I do make them nervous, and he agrees about the reason but… He seems to be under the impression that he wasn’t a _cult_ leader.”

 

Lily leaned in closer, as if to impart a great secret, “He really was though, there were robes, _Gregorian_ chanting, evil dark rituals, magic tattoos, if he’d kept it going a few more years they’d probably start sacrificing their firstborn children to him. I mean, if that’s not a cult, I don’t know what is.”

 

Lily shook her head, a fond smile on her face, “I’m telling you man, the 1970’s were a crazy time.”

 

“Yes, I’m sure they must have been,” he said, but he wasn’t thinking so much on her words (which were as nonsensical as always) but instead on the spirit trapped inside her, much the way he himself had taken temporary residency within her soul.

 

There was something at once peculiarly mortal about him and something not quite mortal at all. He lacked the patience of the first born, even the most ambitious and nefarious among the maiar and elves knew how to bide their time, to wait not only centuries but millennia, but the man’s, Lenin’s focus had been such a sharp, immediate, and demanding thing that brooked no argument.

 

Still, there was something decidedly inhuman about him as well, something in the sharpness of his eyes and the way he regarded his fellow beings, something that made him an entirely different sort of man than he had ever come across before. And the very fact that he rested inside of Lily’s soul and was supposedly trapped there, that certainly played into it.

 

What would he have tempted the man Lenin with, had the ring fallen into his grasp. Not women, not money either, would power alone have been enough, or was something more than even that which the ring would have to dig for inside of the man’s soul?

 

“So, where are we headed anyways?” Lily asked, jarring him from his thoughts once again (and what a sensation, to contemplate so deeply as to be jarred from it), “First, I mean, since you apparently want to see everything.”

 

Well, that was certainly a question. He’d almost instinctively headed east again, either because he’d originally come from the east or perhaps an instinctive response to Sauron’s call. Still, he had no desire to reveal himself to Elrond, who undoubtedly would mark him for what he truly was, and the west… He had no real interest in the undying west.

 

The Shire, perhaps, they would not know him from one big person or another but all the same… Something in him hesitated to touch the Shire. Perhaps because Bilbo himself would not be there, most of what the ring knew of the place wouldn’t be there, he would be a stranger in a strange land. No, later, he would visit the Shire later.

 

Still, there were many places he could travel on a path eastward, all the same one came to mind almost immediately, “East, first, to Gondor and the great white city of Minas Tirith. We can make our way back west from there.”

 

Yes, he would see what had become of the great kingdom of men, Isildur’s legacy.

 

Lily nodded slightly at this then appeared to think on the words and gave him a rather pensive look, “Wasn’t Boromir from there?”

 

“Yes, his father is the steward of Gondor, and he is the eldest son,” he found himself pausing, thinking over his memories of the fellowship, and then remarking, “Of course, Aragorn himself is the true heir of Isildur, and to many the rightful king of Gondor.”

 

Lily just gave him a rather dull and unimpressed glance, clearly not having caught on to the tension between Boromir and Aragorn which had been present throughout every aspect of their journey (though to be fair the ring had not bothered to translate most of Boromir’s or Aragorn’s comments on it), more that very fear which he himself had been manipulating to bring Boromir closer and closer to that inevitable betrayal.

 

A betrayal, that of course, would now never happen since Frodo lacked the ring.

 

“Aragorn’s very existence is a threat not only to Bormir’s father but also to Boromir himself. With his return from exile Boromir could very well lose the throne, particularly if he fails to defend Gondor without the aid of Aragorn and his allies. It is in part why he was so very desperate for my power.”

 

Lily still appeared unsympathetic and unimpressed, finally, she said, “Not being much of a monarchist myself I would think the wellbeing of the world would come before kingship.”

 

The ring nodded his agreement with this, “Well, to be fair, he was indeed focused on saving Gondor from the threat of the east, and Sauron’s forces gathering against him even now. He planned to use the ring for that very purpose, but this of course, would swiftly lead him to his annihilation.”

 

Although privately he wondered if the survival of Gondor, even without Boromir’s foolishness regarding the ring of power, was impossible. With forces from both the east and the west…

 

Of course, now there was only the east.

 

He felt something dawn upon him, and almost unwillingly he turned his gaze to Lily, wondering if she had realized the significance of their actions even before he had, “You know, Lily, the war… It had been unwinnable before this. Between the forces of the two towers, the divided kingdoms of men, and the retreat of the elves into the western lands, hope was a frail and dim thing that relied upon the impossible task presented to a hobbit. But now… Now there is only the east, and victory is no longer assured. If men band together as the elves and men did three thousand years ago, if they retain the military expertise passed down through the ages, then they have a very real chance of driving back Sauron’s army even without the destruction of the one true ring.”

 

And what a strange thought that was, for throughout the meeting of Elrond’s council had been the pervasive and non-negotiable fact that without the destruction of the ring, the world was surely doomed.

 

“But are a bunch of shirtless rabid berserkers really that reliable as generals or even foot soldiers in the first place? I mean, most of them down in Saruman’s pit hadn’t been all that clear on the uptake.” Lily questioned, which, just brought back those fuzzy strange remembrances of when they had briefly been the same being, cutting through the dark flesh of orcs with a great battle cry.

 

“Well… In enough numbers, orcs are a formidable force, and some are smarter than others,” he said rather stiffly, “Besides, there are also the nazgül to be concerned over as well as corrupted men. It’s not only orcs.”

 

“Giving orcs marching orders also seems a bit like herding cats,” Lily added.

 

“Oh, they’re not that terrible,” The ring said, to which he received a pair of raised eyebrows from Lily, “Well, Saruman certainly seemed to get them more under control, that tall one was a very valiant fighter.”

 

“If by valiant you mean beefy then I agree… We are talking about the one we had to stab like thirty times to kill, right?”

 

He closed his eyes and rubbed at the bridge of his nose with a sigh, “What other orc would I have been talking about?”

 

“Well, I don’t know, there were a lot of orcs down there,” Lily said with a shrug, “Plus it all kind of got blurry in the middle there…”

 

They shared a moment of strained almost unbearable silence as they contemplated their combined past actions.

 

Finally, Lily said, “So, what’s Minas Tirith like?”

 

“Well, I have not seen it in some three thousand years,” the ring began, “But it is the great city of men, filled with history of the ages, made out of white stone so that it gleams in the sunlight… Rohan, the other kingdom of men which we shall pass through on the way, is far younger and less concerned with the building of great cities.”

 

“What does Rohan do then?”

 

The ring paused, contemplated this, then said, “They like horses.”

 

“Horses?” Lily asked.

 

The ring smiled, because to her the love and care of horses must be nigh incomprehensible, “Well, not all of us can teleport. Most men, if they wish to travel somewhere swiftly or have advantage in battle, must master the riding of horses.”

 

He felt the smile drift from his face as an odd thought struck him, and wonderingly, he spoke it aloud, “I wonder if our paths won’t cross with the fellowship, now that we head eastward… Rohan or Gondor would welcome them I’m sure.”

 

He paused then dismissed the idea, “It is large country, it is unlikely, especially with the hospitality of the elves at their disposal. I doubt it’s worth contemplating.”

 

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll run into them, and it will be an experience to remember,” Lily commented with a rather cross look on her face.

 

“Why do you say that?”

 

“Murphey’s law,” Lily stated with authority as she stood from her seated position with a sigh, clearly ready to get back on the road, “If we can run into the fellowship, Cracker Jack, then we will.”

 

And with that, the ring had no choice but to refit his boots, stand, and begin hobbling his way into Rohan alongside Lily.

 

* * *

 

 

The smell hit them before the sight, they had skirted about the edge of Fangorn (as any sane being made sure to do), walking through the golden plains, and at the base of the hill as they craned their heads upward they could see the smoke of the pyres but they could also smell the blood and rotting flesh.

 

He exchanged a small glance with Lily and without a word they both stepped forward, up the hill, and stumbled upon the sight of a massacre, not of men, but instead of orcs, just below them in the slight valley.

 

“Holy shit,” Lily summarized in her usual blunt and to the point tone, and he found himself agreeing.

 

“They must have been a raiding party,” he said slowly, taking them in one by one, trying not to linger on their torn flesh and malformed faces, “Sent out by Saruman before…”

 

“Before he met his gruesome death?” Lily finished for him, now covering her mouth and nose with a hand as they were unfortunately standing downwind.

 

“Yes, before that,” he agreed distantly and then added, “We should not linger here.”

 

But before he could comment further he heard the pounding of horses’ hooves, dozens of hooves at that, and, and before even considering what he might do or think he grabbed Lily’s hand into his and once again poured himself into her.

 

Until, where before there had been two, there was now only one.

 

 “The shit man?!” they looked down at themselves in conclusion, patting themselves down as if to make sure they were still all their, thoroughly confused about why they were here and what they were doing and what was even going on…

 

Or rather, she was incredibly confused, he was finding himself strangely relieved for reasons he didn’t quite seem to understand. Just, there was the thought that since Saruman they hadn’t stumbled across any other sentient being and he…

 

“Wait a minute, no, we didn’t do this just so I… Cracker Jack… wouldn’t get molested, did we?” they paused, blinked, looked down at themselves again, “Shit, I think we did.”

 

No, no it was more than that, there were many of these people and while Lily herself could no doubt obliterate them together they were far more of a warrior than either of them were separated…

 

(That is such bullshit, Lily stated quite clearly inside their shared head.)

 

“We are… I am so uncomfortable with this…” They kept saying, even as the sound of the hooves got closer, “I think this might be codependency, we’re feeling a little codependent, we’re using the royal we while talking to ourselves, that’s…”

 

But it was too late now, the horses appeared, all carrying young men of Rohan, armed with lances and defended by shields metal armor, and at the sight of them, standing alone just across from the pile of corpses, they began to circle, drawing their spears forward when Lily and the ring’s shared form was surrounded.

 

They held up their hands, swordless, a sign of surrender among Lily’s people, a small smile of amusement dancing its way onto their shared lips, “Would it make a difference if I said I had no wish to quarrel?”

 

“That depends, on what business an elf has among the bodies slain bodies of orcs?” one, the leader of the riders no doubt, asked.

 

A young man, they thought, but all the same he did have a certain charisma to him that marked him as a leader, he had either been trained for this or had a natural talent for it, perhaps both even.

 

“Business here?” they glanced at the bodies, the smoke, and then back to the man, “Well, to be honest, I was just leaving here…”

 

“To go where?” the man questioned further.

 

“East, to Gondor, via Rohan, obviously,” they said, but this did not seem to dissuade the man, if anything the spears edged closer to them.

 

Which, they suddenly found themselves somewhat amused by, here they’d just slaughtered hundreds of orcs and these men on horses thought they could intimidate them with a few pointy sticks.

 

“And what business does an elf, travelling alone through land infested by orcs unarmed, have in merely travelling to Gondor in times such as these?”

 

It struck them then, that the suspicion remained among these people, that the allure, his allure, had somehow not addled their minds, or it was somehow muted in this place and they retained their rational thought.

 

And they found themselves repressing a grin at the thought, forcing themselves to remain serious in this very serious situation that the captain of the rohirrim was taking all too seriously.

 

“Would you believe that I’m a _tourist_?” they asked, but judging by their expressions the answer to that was no, probably because they had no word for tourism, the concept itself was rather alien, no one simply travelled the world to see it.

 

“No,” a spear even closer to their flesh, “So, what is it you’re doing here and who are you?”

 

“Well, I didn’t expect the bloody _Spanish Inquisition_ ,” they stated, eyeing the spears somewhat ruefully, “Right, well, my name is...”

 

They paused, suddenly realizing that they weren’t entirely sure what gender they currently were, they’d never looked at their shared form without clothes and they couldn’t really remember from their recent pat down if they’d felt breasts or not. At this point they were fairly certain they could pass as either a ridiculously effeminate man or else a rather dashing small breasted woman and the shape of their cheekbones alone did not help them decipher this.

 

Still, being a man was probably more convenient, as a woman truly would have no place on the road (the rohirrim had probably already assumed they were a man and it was only they who were now panicking over a decision).

 

Plus, now they’d just paused much too long and they’d better continue, “… Elanor…”

 

(“No, no we are not calling ourselves Elanor,” Lily balked inside of their head.

 

“It’s your name, Elanor means ‘lily’ in Sindairn, and since we’re obviously an elf you can’t expect us to have the Westron version of it…” he responded back.

 

“My birth name and my real name are not going to be the same thing,” Lily said, “I refuse to accept that state of affairs, no matter how conveniently Schrödinger it happens to be. Pick a different one.”

 

“We already said Elanor!”

 

“I don’t care, pick a different one.”)

 

“…Never mind, my name is apparently Indil,” they, he, they were a he now, added lamely as he tried to ignore the raised eyebrows of those around him (Indil was Quenya version of ‘lily’ and would have to do), “And I am on a journey of self-discovery, travelling east to Gondor, hoping to see the summit of mankind’s imagination and the pit of his fears before travelling west across the sea.”

 

They offered a weak smile and then swiftly added, almost blurted really, “I’m also very impressed by your brutal slaughter of the orcs… because everyone hates orcs.”

 

Indil, with his combined thoughts, suddenly wished it had been the Spanish Inquisition instead because he had somehow managed to shove his foot so far into his own mouth that these people were about to try and stab him to death, and he’d have to whip out the sword, scream some statement about regretting nothing and viva la revolution, and run for the hills.

 

The ring, inside of Indil, also couldn’t help but reflect that he and Lily combined, had somehow managed to become, perhaps, the most embarrassing elf to have ever existed on the face of Middle Earth.

 

“You are a very strange elf.”

 

Inconceivably the spears raised away from him leaving Indil openly gaping at them and the leader, looking at him as if he’d lost his mind, which he must have… Unless the allure was still somehow in effect or Indil just had some miraculous natural charisma that exuded his crippling social awkwardness.

 

“Forgive us, Indil, Rohan is not what it was,” the man raised his helmet off his head revealing a dirt covered face that had seen better days and matted hair the color of straw, “Saruman has poisoned the mind of the king, Théoden, and claimed lordship over these lands.”

 

He motioned to his fellow riders, “My company are those loyal to Rohan and for that we are banished…”

 

His gaze sharpened on him once again, as if trying to see through Indil and to the very heart of him, “The white wizard is cunning and everywhere his spies slip past our nets.”

 

Indil spared him a dull glance of raised eyebrows, and then looked down at himself, and then back up to the man, “Do I look like a spy?”

 

“No, and that is why you are still alive.” The man conceded to which Indil gave a humoring nod to the man, it was perhaps for the best that he believed that, rather than Indil’s unconscious exuding of allure being responsible, it made things much easier.

 

He paused then though, thinking back to the last time Indil had been Indil, and the death of Saruman, he glanced at the riders, at their grim and haggard faces, then at their spears, and asked in a way that he prayed was diplomatic, “Have you checked?”

 

“Have I checked?” the man repeated with his own wry look.

 

“Have you checked Isengard, or seen the king, recently, within the past few weeks,” Indil asked, gauging the reaction of the men, but they were as stone faced and unmoved as ever.

 

“Do you take us for fools? None could storm that tower and live and as for the king he…” the man balked.

 

“Yes, but…” Indil interjected before stopping himself, not entirely sure how he wanted to put this, “Someone, may have possibly, flooded Isengard, destroying the bulk of the vast army of Saruman, and decapitated the white wizard. Likely, possibly likely, this raiding party is one of the last of its kind, the remaining orcs no doubt dividing themselves when left to their own dubious devices…”

 

He stopped taking in their now blank and slack jawed expressions as he awkwardly pressed onwards, “More, unless Saruman’s power lingers after his own rather gruesome demise, the king is now most likely suffering a migraine of epic proportions, is right as rain, is brain damaged, or died of some epileptic fit.”

 

“What proof have you of this?” the man demanded, looking on the verge of lowering his spear again, to which Indil just rose his hands higher in the air.

 

“I just passed by Isengard a few weeks ago and it was mostly underwater last I’d checked,” Indil stated with authority and seeing the lack of belief on the faces of all the men he sighed and added, “Believe me or not, it is your choice, but all the same the least you could do is send someone to Rohan to check.”

 

For a moment, he looked quite conflicted but then, with a sigh, stated, “I cannot, until the king summons the riders back himself, we are still banished. We shall scout Isengard, instead, and see what truth your words hold.”

 

“Really, just like that?” Indil asked dubiously, it was oddly trusting of them, after all to storm Isengard normally was a suicide mission at best (in fact, to go at all was basically taking Indil at his word), but the man seemed oddly willing to believe in Indil’s words (which were true, he supposed, so all the better for them.)

 

But the man was not finished as he added, “And you, Indil, shall pay a visit to the king.”

 

Indil considered this blankly for a moment, and finally remarked, “You know, I was hoping to just pass through Rohan…”

 

At the look on the man’s face he quickly backtracked, “Fine, fine, I’ll go and make sure the king has not become a vegetable in your absence. You’re welcome, by the way.”

 

A small, pained, quirk of the lips from the man, “You have our thanks.”

 

And then they were off, riding into the distance, leaving Indil standing there on a hill, still next to piles of dead orcs, and he’d be stuck as Indil for a good while.

 

“Well,” he said to himself, “At least people don’t seem to be expecting to bear my unborn sons.”

 

* * *

 

 

As he walked in the form of Indil towards Edoras, the capital city of Rohan and the only true city of the kingdom, slightly apprehensive of how he’d gotten himself into this mess and what he even planned to do about any of it, deep in Lily’s subconscious, the true ring abided with the spirit of the mortal Lenin.

 

And Lenin was entirely unamused.

 

“Get the fuck out of Lily’s head,” the man had seemed to have lost all patience to be scathingly polite and had instead resorted to blunt animosity, and although he retained his refined posture as he sat in a green and silver chair before an elaborate fireplace, while the ring occupied the other, his eyes burned with a terrible brightness.

 

The room itself was strange, all of it silver and green, not quite over decorated but approaching it, certainly the kind of décor that only the richest of nobility among men could afford. However, something in it seemed to suit the man Lenin, there was a familiarity here, as if it had been an actual place in his past rather than something he’d forged for himself out of desire.

 

“You have no business here,” Lenin continued as he sipped from a cup of tea, “You have your own two feet, so get the hell out and use them.” 

 

“It’s a bit late for that,” the ring commented, “We’re stuck now, at least, until we leave Rohan.”

 

“That is a pitiably poor excuse,” Lenin practically spat, “You’re just using Lily because you don’t want to have to deal with people. Or rather, you don’t want to deal with people who are too stoned out of their bloody minds from your very presence to function properly.”

 

“Which, really, that’s what you are at the heart of things, a corrupter of men’s souls, and this is only your shallow attempt at pretending you’re something else. I find it almost entertainingly sad, the lengths to which you’ll go to deceive yourself, but even if you weren’t so pathetic,” the man continued, “There’s still the blatant fact that I do not appreciate your company in slightest.”

 

The ring laughed at that last remark, wondering if the man had any idea how petty he sounded with it, for all his caustic words, “And why should I care what you want or do not want, Lenin?”

 

The man considered this, tilting his head as he looked at him, and it was such a strange dissecting gaze for a mortal to have, clinical and so very severe, “One day, hopefully soon, Lily and I will return to England. You will be on your own then, out in the big bad world, and there will be no Lily to hide yourself behind.”

 

He said this with such certainty, such conviction, that the ring suddenly was able to connect the pieces he had only glimpsed before, “It’s you who wants to go to England. You’re what pushes for your return there… But why would a bodiless spirit care for what land he finds himself in, especially since you are bound to Lily’s spirit alone?”

 

Lenin barked out a small and harsh laugh, “Is that what you truly think?”

 

He set aside his tea, looking briefly into the fire, and then finally looked back at the ring with those cold, contemptuous, eyes of his, “I will be frank, I suppose, you and I are more alike than I care to admit. Just as you were once a physical being with only one soul so was I. And like you I was feared and loathed by my people with justified reasons. Only, unlike you, I’ve always known what I wanted, and even in my darkest moments I never connived for the destruction of the world itself.”

 

The ring considered this, slowly, not entirely sure what to think of it, and then remarked, “That does not explain why you wish so badly to return to England.”

 

There was a flash of something across the man’s face, a deep nostalgia, bitterness, and perhaps something more vulnerable than that, but it was gone before the ring could even blink, but all the same Lenin’s words were soft as he spoke, “I was a revolutionary, once. You don’t know much of our home country, but it is a very different place than here, more complicated in some ways. England had grown backward, slogged down by bureaucracy, corruption, and traditions best left to the wayside, for fifty years it had been tottering on the brink of one coup or another. I lead a revolutionary movement against this government, and within ten years I came so very close to toppling it, but then… Suffice to say, that unwittingly, Lily played a role in my destruction and I ended up trapped here inside of her head. Now, when I return, when we get myself a body, I will start back where I left off, and remold England into my own image.”

 

The ring’s words in the silence after Lenin’s explanation, were like the sound of steel blades striking one another, ringing out through the hills, “And how is that any different than what Sauron wants?”

 

Lenin looked at him and the ring gazed calmly back, the fires of Mount Doom burning inside of his irises, “You were right the first time, I should think, we are very different from one another. You are extraordinarily mortal, at the heart of things, and it shows. I’m not like that, I have no lust for power these days, and even in the old days I only longed to return to what I was… I had no desire to crown myself a king.”

 

The man certainly bristled at that, “And yet your Sauron seems to have no qualms turning himself into an emperor.”

 

“I am not Sauron,” the ring stated back, and it seemed so clear in that instant, so unquestionable, “I haven’t been Sauron for three thousand years, and even then, I am but a fraction of his fëa.”

 

For a moment he thought Lenin would remark on this, cut through whatever the ring was saying with biting insight (as he always seemed to do), but for now Lenin seemed to choose to retreat as he politely smiled, and asked, “Well then, setting that aside, what exactly do you think you’ll be doing when you’re done playing tourist? Surely you don’t think you’ll be wandering around Middle Earth until the sun finally expands.”

 

Or, perhaps, he’d hit the nail on the head completely. More than he probably realized even. There was a reason the undying lands of the west existed, and that those immortal beings who chose to remain here, who lingered for the sake of mortal lovers, suffered in anguish and agony as everything around them faded.

 

“I will not be the only one here,” he said out loud, “Immortality, or nigh immortality, is granted to many beings, I will not be the last.”

 

“But the elves are leaving,” Lenin stated, and how could a mortal man from a land so very far from here, be so very perceptive.

 

“Yes, the elves are leaving.”

 

And Lily too, for that matter, was headed to her own version of the unreachable west… Unless, of course, he somehow managed to sail west to England with her.

 

* * *

 

 

“This place is bleaker than I expected,” Indil remarked to himself as he walked up the hill to the hall of Théoden, king of Rohan. The doors were all shut, there were no children in the streets, and everything seemed curiously drained of color.

 

Oddly enough, it was Lily’s memories which haunted his mind now, that of the mysterious iron curtain in the east, of tall gray Stalinist architecture and the drawn and bitter faces of those cogs in the great Soviet machine.

 

Here there was that same unspoken tension and fear, of one wrong word equaling banishment, even from the man who strode in front of him and demanded the weapons Indil did not possess there was that haunting fear of whether or not he would be next.

 

Rohan was crumbling from within.

 

So perhaps it wasn’t a surprise when the hall opened to reveal a gray interior, unlit by any sort of fire, whatever rogues or cowards who hadn’t been banished lining the walls and fingering their swords as they looked at the strange and exotic Indil.

 

And at the end of the hall, a dark haired thin spidery man whispering in his ear, was a decrepit king whose eyes were so glazed over he might as well have been blind, and who looked on the verge of knocking upon death’s great door.

 

Still, he seemed alive, more or less, and as the man whispered into his ear and his eyes turned towards Indil seemed at the very least capable of slurred speech, “Strange elf, what ill news brings you to my hall?”

 

Or at least, capable of repeating whatever Severus Snape’s smaller greasier cousin whispered into his ear.

 

(And for an oddly queasy moment, he wondered if this was what his bearers resembled, when looking at them from the outside. And what smile he had worn as he whispered in their ears and torn their minds to pieces.)

 

“They call me Indil, and I come bearing news, Théoden king.” Indil announced loudly, eyes casting left and right to see men stalking him, fingers on swords again.

 

“Ill news,” Théoden remarked.

 

“Perhaps,” Indil remarked back before his eyes flicked to the man beside the king, “Ill news to some no doubt.”

 

“Late is the hour in which you choose to appear with this news of yours,” the man stood and walked forward to stare into the whites of Indil’s eyes, and for a man so greasy his voice was not without its ability to be compelling, “Ill news is an ill guest here.”

 

“It is a fool who turns away information merely because it may displease him,” Indil remarked, staring into the man’s watery pale eyes without flinching, “More, he turns himself into a puppet by doing so, ruling only in name as all information that reaches his ears are that which his corrupted advisor wishes for him to hear.”

 

The man took a step back at the fire in Indil’s eyes, at the glow of his skin, that rising of the sun within him just before the words of the one ring would carve themselves into his skin along with Lily’s bolt of lightning, “Where I am from there once was a great empire by the name of _Rome_ and in it there once was an emperor who no longer truly wished to be a king. He retired in all but name to an island called _Capri_ and gave the ruling of his kingdom to one of his generals, seeing no one except those which the general approved and hearing nothing but that which the general whispered in his ear. There was a great terror as everyone and their brother was arrested for treason, as the emperor’s own kin was arrested for treason until no heirs remained, but the general overstepped himself, and the emperor then killed him and everyone who was remotely connected to him until the streets were practically paved in blood. And you, my friend, do not seem half so clever or subtle as Sejanus was.”

 

Indil turned his attention over the dark-haired man’s shoulder, to the king himself, and stated bluntly for all the room to hear, “I regret to inform you that Saruman, the white wizard, is dead and Isengard flooded by the river upon which it rests. Anyone working for the wizard, who wishes to remain amongst the living, would find it in their best interests to leave post haste.”

 

The king laughed, a harsh biting laugh, one that seemed stronger than his body itself was, “Who do you think you are?”

 

“I think that I am Indil,” Indil remarked, “The nameless stranger without even a sword to his name, travelling east to Gondor; nothing more, nothing less.”

 

This seemed to spur more derisive laughter, this time also from the men in the hall, and even the dark-haired man himself.

 

Indil ignored them, as Lily herself had always ignored those who laughed in her face, “I have seen your son and his companions, as well as a pile of dead orcs they’ve left behind to burn, you would do well to summon back your military. The threat to the west may have vanished but there are still orcs about and there is still the east to concern yourself over.”

 

“Lies, my lord,” the dark haired man hissed back to his king, “All lies, lies from a vagabond elf, a foreign vagabond elf who dares not even cite his homeland.”

 

“Regardless of what you may think of me or my information,” Indil remarked finding himself a touch offended by all of this, “At the very least, dismissing your military, especially when plotting behind your back, is the height of stupidity. You’ve left them to their own devices to plot and initiate a coup from the hills; you’ve made perhaps the dumbest mistake I’ve ever heard of, and frankly, with that kind of strategic thinking, perhaps you deserve to be overthrown.”

 

Swords were drawn at that, men looking at each other as well as at Indil, uncertain what to make of him, his words, or his news but Indil couldn’t find it in himself to care. In fact, he was starting to wonder why he’d gotten involved in this mess in the first place, Rohan belonged neither to the ring nor to Lily yet here he was acting as janitor.

 

“Plus,” Indil added in a derisive tone, channeling more Lily than had earlier, “This is all starting to sound a bit more like Stalin and Trotsky. Perhaps, it’s not so much that your captain was a traitor and a deceiver, but instead that you needed a convenient enemy of the state by which you could make your people twitch. Likely, long after the captain is assassinated with an ice pick lodged in his head, his troops massacred or else shipped off to the gulags, you’ll still be here ranting and raving about treachery and the counterrevolutionary whispers of that devil captain of your guard.”

 

Indil shifted his head over to the men now advancing upon him, “And will you stay out of it! You’ve stayed out of it this long you might as well sit around twiddling your thumbs for a few more seconds!”

 

Using Lily’s ability inside of them as well as her vast impatience, he threw an impenetrable barrier around them and began to step forward, shoving the greasy twitchy rat man into a wall and stalking towards the king himself.

 

“I am so tired of being the unwanted _janitor_ ,” Indil muttered, staring Théoden straight in the eye and then striking him across the face, the man twitching and staring at him balefully through misted eyes, “It’s a rather thankless task and there is not a hint of glory in it.”

 

He struck the king’s other cheek, ignoring the cries from behind him, focused only on the king who had once more burst into laughter, trapped under a thin shadow that Saruman’s presence had left behind.

 

“Oh, get a hold of yourself,” Indil remarked as he whacked the man one final time, this time with Lily’s magic tingling in his hand, and that seemed enough to blow sense into the man, as well as color. The film over his eyes shattered, his skin regained color and youth, and his limbs movement as he started and twitched towards Indil with a look that screamed that he had no idea what the bloody hell was going on.

 

“Oh, well,” Indil remarked, stepping awkwardly backwards, and realizing that he’d just stuck his foot into his mouth again, more or less, “You seem to be better… I will… Yes…”

 

Indil made to move backwards but stopped at the sight of the men, holding their swords before them, mouths open and eyes wide, the dark-haired man held back by a few of them as he now tried to flee the room, and a young golden-haired woman running past Indil and to the king to stare him in the eyes.

 

Well, Théoden was now staring at everything in baffled wonder, which perhaps was his due but none the less Indil was wondering if this was his cue to leave. By all accounts he was done here, but all the same, it didn’t look like the time to leave. Or rather, he doubted the men would allow him to leave now, and he’d rather not have to blow them all to either side of the room and march his way out of Rohan.

 

Plus, all too likely they’d send men after him in Gondor, and then what the hell would he do? Well, deal with it accordingly, still it was a rather large mess that he’d rather not deal with, and so standing around twiddling his thumbs seemed like the thing to do.

 

He found himself walking back, edging himself to stand towards Greasy McGrease, and remarked, “You know, I did warn you to get out while the going was good.”

 

Greasy McGrease naturally spared him a rather disbelieving and accusing glance to which Indil merely shrugged.

“Now, it’s hardly my fault you didn’t listen, don’t go shooting the messenger.”

 

Finally, Théoden’s attention appeared to turn to them, and there was a fire in his eyes as they settled on the man on the floor, “And it appears that you may not be long for this world. If I were you, I’d make my peace with God.”

 

Whether the man made his peace with God or not was debatable as he was seized by the men around him and thrown out the doors and onto the steps leading to the hall of the king. Even more debatable, as pleading with Theoden, he had his neck cut into by the king’s sword.

 

Such a fast, messy, and utterly human way to depart this world.

 

And then Théoden’s eyes, everyone’s eyes, turned to Indil, “You, what is your name and from where do you hail?”

 

“Indil, my lord, and I am… a wanderer, as our uh… dearly departed friend pointed out not so long ago.” Indil explained with a hasty bow, “I am headed to Gondor, to Minas Tirith, to see the white city. I was actually planning on headed out soon, now that you are no longer… Well, as you were.”

 

Indil’s finishing smile was a weak and awkward thing, one which faced much scrutiny by those surrounding him, but none the less the king asked with a sigh, “Were you? You realize, of course, that having rid me of Saruman’s poison and delivered news of his own destruction, you must stay a guest in my hall.”

 

“Oh, must I?” Indil asked.

 

“You have news to deliver, or so you said,” the king remarked.

 

“All the same, my liege,” Indil started, “I really was hoping to be on my way…”

 

But he stopped before he even started, sighing as he took in the men, the swords, the hall, and the king and realized there was no good way to wiggle his way out of this. And, like it or not, he would have to endure being wined and dined by a king.

 

Somewhere in the back of his head, where Lily and the ring both dwelled, he wondered if somewhere along the way he hadn’t made some huge mistake.

 

* * *

 

 

There was something very Bree-like about this place, or perhaps because he and Lily really only had the drunken pubs of Bree to compare it to, but certainly the amount of drinking and general rowdiness was a far cry from either Hogwarts or Gollum’s cave.

 

Of course, Indil himself, was plastered, so it was hard to form any coherent thoughts at the moment, “And then… Then… Then I ran into this giant troll in the middle of the hallway because Squirrel, that rat bastard, had set it loose in the middle of a _school_. Because that’s what Squirrel did, he set loose trolls, and stuttered, and was just generally incompetent… And he stuttered, by George did he stutter. It’d take him at least a minute to get out a bloody five-word sentence…”

 

Indil stopped hand motioned, beer sloshing in hand as he told his story to his somewhat bemused audience, “Which, for an istär, or well, not istär, that’s a bad translation but it’s close enough. Let’s just call him a _wizard_ or whatever… Anyways, for a _wizard_ to stutter, that’s like giving some blind asshole arrows and telling himself to not shoot himself in the foot. It’s like… the cripples of _wizards,_ you might as well be a cripple if you stutter… Have I mentioned that I loathe Squirrel with a fire of a thousand suns?”

 

Théoden, sitting across from Indil, Indil being at some makeshift seat of honor, laughed heartily and asked, “But where do you come from, you have such strange stories…”

 

Indil blinked, swayed slightly almost falling into the bastard next to him, took another sip before starting, “ _From, well, right now not really from anywhere… Very far, you wouldn’t have heard of it really…_ ”

 

He stopped then realizing all of that had come out in English and he stopped and started again, “I’m from the west, well not the west-west, but just the general direction of west, an island, the land of Eng… You wouldn’t have heard of it; it’s small, and boring, like Bree but even more backwater and uninteresting, and our people don’t get out much, it’s not our thing… You know I’m not really an elf, right? Or a maiar for that matter…”

 

None of them seemed to buy this, eyes drifting to his ears, and Indil took another drink. He then turned, caught sight of Théoden’s daughter Éowyn, lingering behind him looking like she was trying to pretend she wasn’t eavesdropping, “Hey, this is really good beer, way better than Bree’s… Is there any more of it? And am I too drunk if everything’s more than slightly blurry?”

 

Blurry Éowyn had no answer to that.

 

Somewhere, deep inside him then deep inside Lily, Wizard Lenin was almost ready to commit homicide out of the shame of it all.

 

Indil decided it was best to continue where he left off, wherever that was, “Anyway, there’s probably some immortal blood in there somewhere… Anyway, my village is called Surrey, and it’s the worst… Have you ever heard of Surrey?”

 

“No,” Théoden remarked, not quite as drunkenly as Indil, “I have never heard of a village by the name of Surrey.”

 

“Right, well, unsurprising. Anyway, I decided to come here and visit Minas Tirith, maybe even make my fortune there, and since there’s only three roads to Minas Tirith from the west, one being locked away by dwarves and undoubtedly filled with certain death, another being unbearably cold and filled with near certain death, and the other filled with probable death but at least it isn’t as cold as the mountains or as dark as the mines, I decided to chance my luck and pass by Isengard hoping the white wizards and his thousands of orcs wouldn’t take notice…”

 

Indil took another large gulp of beer and reached for another mug, “To my great fortune, they did not, but probably because they were all dead. Drowned by the river Isen, and Saruman’s head floating along there without its body...”

 

Another sip of beer, slight wobbling, steadying himself on the table then continuing, “So, after that, I felt a lot better about my decision to take the pass into Rohan, and proceeded on my merry way. Or at least, that was the plan, until I run into your captain…”

 

“Éomir,” Éowyn remarked behind him, “My brother.”

 

“Right, until I ran into Éomir and gave him the news about Saruman and said that the king… um, you I suppose… Was probably fine now that Saruman was very dead. Except he was still banished, because laws, and so he told me to come back to Rohan to make sure while they went off to see about Isengard. And so, I walked for a while, showed up, slapped some literal sense into the king here, and well, here we are.”

 

For a moment they seemed to all digest this, drunkenly, but then a clear sober woman’s voice rang out, “Strange, that Saruman’s army should be obliterated just like that without anyone knowing.”

 

“Yes, isn’t it a miracle?” Indil remarked with a sense of alarm. He then passed his glass to Éowyn, “Here, my lady, wouldn’t you like more alcohol to blunt your disturbingly perceptive thoughts?”

 

“Now,” Théoden started as he gazed at Indil, tapping at his gilded crown with a single finger, “What I want to know is, why in Arda’s name would you want to go to Minas Tirith? And so quickly, on foot, without rest, with a hangover… You should spend more time in Rohan, we’ll treat you well here, and then reconsider this need to travel to Gondor.”

 

“Well,” Indil started, throwing his hands about as he searched for the right words, “It seems like the place to be. I haven’t been there in… Well, it’s been a while, and I was wondering how they were getting on these days.”

 

“Bah,” the king scoffed, “It is a place of corruption and petty place seeking and I would not be surprised if the steward’s forces are easily overtaken by Sauron’s in the coming months, so focused is he on his own courts and complacency with power.”

 

Indil merely smiled and nodded at this, in a way that he hoped was polite, while Wizard Lenin’s words of England rang through his head.

 

“Besides, you have barely seen Rohan, why leave so soon?”

 

There was much drunken protesting from the men around him that Indil held up his hands and admitted defeat, “Fine, fine, I’ll stay in Rohan a short while. I’m not really in any sort of rush, and I’ll get there eventually, I’m sure.”

 

And there was much rejoicing for the rest of the evening, more beer, stories that were a combined mix of the ring and Lily’s own past, changed and warped into something that suited Indil and was alien to the pair of them, and the night wound itself on and on until eventually Indil had no choice but to shuffle off towards the quarters given to him earlier.

 

Just as he did so though, the princess’ voice caught him from behind, “I’m very grateful, Indil.”

 

Indil stopped, turned, and noted that even in the dark, with him more than drunk, she was very pretty. Not quite beautiful as an elf, but for a mortal was prettier than he would have expected. He nodded slowly, slumping against a wall, and remarked, “There’s no need, anyone could have done it, probably, and probably less violently.”

 

“All the same, I must thank you,” Éowyn commented, taking in his nod and Indil pushing himself on the wall and preparing to stagger once again to his room, “You are a very strange man, you know?”

 

“I am aware, my lady,” Indil commented, “I am more than aware.”

 

And later, when he was finally on his own, and he looked down at his pale hands, unmarked by the ring’s binding or Lily’s own power for the moment, he was struck by the thought that he should separate into the pair of them. He’d been this hybrid form of Indil for days now, had granted him a name and a past, had engraved his face into the minds of those around him and now would be forced to remain Indil until he left Rohan…

 

But Indil remained, his hands his own, neither Lily nor the ring bursting from him.

 

* * *

 

 

Behind Indil’s smile, his green leaf eyes haloed by an ever-present sunset, the ring whispered to Lily, _“They are horse people at the heart of things. Horses are their livelihood, their means of combat, everything ties back to horses.”_

 

The week passed and this became more than evident, horses were everywhere in this country, horses bred both for speed and for battle, and it seemed that every child was a horse master or would soon become one.

 

Their new-found fame, also, solidified itself until it seemed there wasn’t a single person who hadn’t heard of the elf from Eng by the name of Indil. It was different than Lily’s fame. Lily’s fame had been an overwhelming, if fickle thing, Lily had saved her people from the brink of certain death. And while he had saved their king it was not quite the same. As for the ring, well, he had only ever been infamous, and the light in these people’s eyes when they greeted him was not derived from the allure (although people seemed eerily willing to forgive Indil’s social faux pas or trust him with little reason to do so).

 

As he remained and learned about horses, spoke to Théoden about kingship and the threat of Sauron’s army to the east, and about anything and everything in between, rumor began to spread about his own status as a warrior despite his lack of sword.

 

It just seemed far too convenient that only one man would speak of the news of Saruman’s demise and that he would not be in some way responsible. Which… Well, this was true, but it was still unsettling to hear.

 

Today found him wandering about Edoras, staring out into the afternoon sunlight and the great golden plains, wondering how long he would be staying here and just what he could expect from Gondor after all of this. Or at least, that had been his plan, until, wandering behind the hall of the king into one of those forgotten fields which no one frequented, he stumbled across Éowyn wielding a blade and holding it high above her head as if to strike the final blow.

 

“Oh, hell,” Indil muttered, which prompted Éowyn to turn, catch sight of him, and blanch dropping the sword.

 

“Oh, Indil, I found this and I uh…” Indil didn’t give her much of a chance to finish the awkward, pretend I’m not doing what I’m clearly doing conversation, and instead he picked the sword back up, put it into her hands, and proceeded to move her feet into a better position.

 

“You need to focus on your footwork, a gust of stray wind could knock you over if you stand like that, bend your knees a little more… Good, better.” He said as she bent her knees at his suggestion, he stepped back, and commented, “Of course you have to practice moving too… I take it you have no partner?”

 

Éowyn said nothing as Indil summoned the sword of Gryffindor, gleaming in the sunlight, “Well, I’m self-taught and haven’t really watched anyone for technique but I suppose it’s better than nothing.”

 

He met her sword with his, pressing forward and forcing her to stand her ground, “Good, not bad, of course you want to press me backwards, get me off balance and I’m dead…”

 

She pressed forward with her sword, pressing him backwards to which he stepped to the side and knocked her sword down, “Of course, you’ll have to watch for something like that too…”

 

They practiced and in it Indil found himself departing knowledge not only from Isildur but also, strangely enough, from Lily’s memories and that of the man inside of her (who had hardly seemed one for combat and even seemed to find it slightly distasteful).

 

Eventually they fought to the point where Éowyny’s muscles strained themselves and halted, likely for the day, and finally Indil asked, “Now, what is a pretty maiden like you doing practicing sword play in a place like this?”

 

“These are not times in which anyone can afford to go undefended,” Éowyn said, “Even a woman.”

 

“Well, yes,” Indil said, “I suppose, I hadn’t thought of it in terms of gender before. You’d think defending oneself and or the glorious slaying of orcs would be a pastime to be shared by all.”

 

She laughed, wiping sweat off her forehead, and remarked, “You are a very strange man.”

 

“You’ve said that already,” Indil said, “Still, I’m not sure your father would agree with me… Or your brother for that matter, whenever he shows back up.”

 

“No, they would not,” Éowyn remarked, before looking steadily into his eyes, searching for something inside of them, “But then, they are wrong, in this at least. Do I too not have the option of fighting for my people?”

 

“Don’t go looking at me, I agree with you,” Indil said with raised eyebrows, “And I’m not going to rat you out, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

 

She laughed at that, looked at him, and stated clearly, “I wasn’t wondering.”

 

“Oh, well, then I suppose we’re good… Although, how good at this are you expecting to be? Because I’ll be honest, orcs can be very… tall. You’d a rough time of it stabbing one to death even if your sword is very pointy.” Indil said, “Not that this means you’ll lose automatically, just that, well, you’re not exactly the tallest most muscular person I’ve ever seen.”

 

“That is true, I hadn’t thought of that…” Éowyn said, “All the same…”

 

“Oh, don’t listen to me, I’m sure you’ll do as fine as anyone else around here. I mean, if an eleven-year-old human girl could stab someone twice her size to death after having her head bashed in against a chair, then surely anything is possible.”

 

 He caught Éowyn’s eye and then looked away, flushing slightly, “Never mind, that’s an entirely different story.”

 

She laughed again, bright exuberant laughter that lit up her face, and against his will he found himself laughing with her. And only when they were done, both grinning stupidly at each other, him looking at the spark in her gray-blue eyes, did he suddenly have the horrifying thought that they had been flirting.

 

Or… She’d been flirting and he’d been…

 

He, or rather, the ring inside of Indil, also suddenly realized he had little experience with women, especially in this context. Isildur, hardened by war and then torn asunder by the ring, had scorned his wife and had little time or patience for the woman while he worshipped at the ring’s golden alter, Bilbo was and had remained a bachelor, and Frodo was still relatively young and uninterested in a wife for now.

 

The closest thing he knew to a woman was Lily, and he was more than certain that she didn’t count, not only because she was still on the cusp of adolescence.

 

Indil quickly reassured himself, staring at Éowyn and leaning slightly backwards, that he was no one, not even a real person (but a combination of Lily and the ring), and more he was some strange elf that no elf would ever vouch for and no one would ever truly trust… Who was now the reputed slayer of evil wizards, savior of Rohan, and in any other story could very well be offered a princess’ hand in marriage no matter his lack of contacts.

 

(Lily, inside of their shared head, suddenly remarked, _“I don’t want to get married.”_ )

 

Indil stood abruptly, looked down at Éowyn who was now looking up at him with a puzzled if amused frown, and no words came out, none at all that could explain any of what he’d just been thinking and even those thoughts he didn’t really want to explain, finally, blinking and without room for her to remark on any of it, he desperately left the scene of the crime, fleeing for the great hall and then the gates so he could get the hell out of Edoras while the going was still good.

 

All he had to do was say something relatively polite to Théoden, said he’d stayed too long, and then he was off for glorious anonymity in Minas Tirith where absolutely no one knew his name.

 

Of course, that was when the fellowship chose to arrive.


	4. Chapter 4

It was not a trait of his, when he had merely been the Ring, to provide himself with internal commentary much less debate. Perhaps this was merely because, for the vast majority of his existence, he had only had the potential of sentience rather than any true self-reflection or thought.

 

There’d been no need for such things as sentience, he’d had his purpose, his own base desires of returning to his physical self, and thinking beyond that, thought itself, was, to use a favorite word of Lily’s from a favorite film, inconceivable.

 

Until Lily, until it had been proven necessary, thought itself hadn’t been a concept to him.

 

To Lily, however, as her memories lingered and bled into Indil, these internal debates, arguments, and monologues and dialogues, were everything and as familiar and thoughtless as whispering desire into mortal and immortal hearts had once been to the ring.

 

After all, to her it was the opposite, she herself wasn’t a non-entity, it was the rest of the world, all universes and dreams of men that had to be called into turbulent question. Lily’s memories, histories, and the core of her soul sang within Indil and suddenly those strange thoughts she’d carried were more than comprehensible to him. She, and those things she held near and dear to her own heart and mind, were all that she could truly rely upon.

 

She was both intimately and subconsciously aware of this fact, and thus, there was almost a constant echo within her own mind, a desperate reassurance of thought, dialogue, to remind herself that merely by having the capability of thought she herself must exist in one capacity or another.

 

I think, she’d say reverently, therefore I am.

 

Indil, it seemed, had picked up his own penchant for internal conversation from her.

 

“Alright,” he said to himself as he practically skipped up the steps to the great hall of Théoden king of Rohan, only briefly aware of the muttering of the people of Edoras and the glancing towards the hall (as if it wasn’t any ordinary day in Rohan now that Saruman’s shadow was lifted), “Here’s what you’re going to do, you’re going to politely, very politely, note that it’s about time you get going and you will say nothing about daughters or sword fighting or daughters doing the sword fighting and then flirting…”

 

However, as he walked, Indil noted to himself that he seemed to have lost any and all capacity to block his thoughts from forming into words. Filters, that was what Lily would call them, he lacked verbal filters, and as a result if he was thinking it he tended to just come out and say it.

 

So, it was very likely that he would come out and tell Théoden that he’d helped Eowyn practice her swordplay (and she was actually rather good for someone self-taught) and that he was fairly certain that his daughter had her eye on this foreign elf from an island no one had ever heard of from a direction no mortal could ever visit.

 

Except that would be… not simply rude, but detrimental to his health, and was probably something he shouldn’t say at all.

 

“I’ll keep it short,” Indil concluded as he opened the door, however, whatever he was going to say died on his tongue and a curse took its place, “Oh, shit.”

 

Nine in number still, nine loyal and strong and brave as they had been in the Mines of Moria, there was the fellowship of the ring standing all together in Rohan against all the odds.

 

(Inside of his head Indil had the distinct feeling that Lily was somewhat smug about having been proved right about the law of Murphy while also despairing of their timing. Which, really, was not helping this situation.)

 

And they were all now staring at him with Indil using all of Lily’s force of will, all the ring’s iron patience that had kept him going and moving forward for three thousand years, to force his mouth shut against further, more profane, cursing.

 

Instead, with a rather, awkward, stiff, and clearly insincere smile, he said, “Greetings, Théoden king, and friends.”

 

Sauron, he thought distantly to himself, had seduced Celebrimbor, the entire island of Númenor and its great kingdom of men, maiar upon maiar, and more with almost a thoughtless and instinctive ease. The ring, in its own way, had inherited a dulled and blunt version of this talent, and had maneuvered Isildur away from the heart of Mount Doom, had twisted the minds of all his bearers, and had only faltered upon falling into Eleanor Lily Potter of England’s hands.

 

Where was that goddamned talent now?!

 

They kept staring, they looked far more rested than they had in the heart of the mines, likely they had gone to Lothlorien as the ring had predicted, perhaps talked to Galadriel who, in her goddamned prescient wisdom, had told them to head out for Rohan where they might meet the ring merged with the outlander witch…

 

Or, he thought as he took in their expressions, all dumbfounded certainly but not hostile to a hybrid ring-witch, perhaps not.

 

“Well,” he said, clapping his hands together and interrupting the silence, “I would love to stay and chat and be introduced but you look busy, and your friends look important, and I was just going to tell you that I believe I have overstayed my welcome and shall be fleeing East as soon as physically possible…”

 

Théoden held up an amused hand as he laughed, “Indil, friend, it is as if your mouth is a river and words simply gush out of it. Come, come, these men have traveled not only to meet me but you as well. This is Aragorn son of Arathorn, Prince Legolas Thranduilion of Mirkwood, Gandalf the gray, Gimli son of Gloin, Boromir of Gondor, Samwise Gamgee, Meriadoc Brandybuck, Peregrin Took, and of course Frodo Baggins.”

 

Théoden then gave Indil a rather amused, and piercing look, “They had heard of Saruman the white’s, the corrupted’s, passing in the woods of Lothlorien.”

 

“Ah,” Indil said simply, blinking once or twice, “Have they? Well, it is certainly a cause for much rejoicing.”

 

“Of which everyone and their brother knows you are responsible,” Théoden said, stepping off his throne to pat Indil on the shoulder, as if they were brothers. Indil tried not to stiffen as he realized, by that gesture alone, Théoden likely would more than approve of Éowyn’s intentions.

 

“What, me?” Indil said with a now truly awkward and strained grin, “No, I could never stand against someone so powerful and intimidating and surrounded by an army of blood thirsty orcs as Saruman. Why, it would take Lúthien Tinúviel herself to demolish such a tower with such ease, someone like me simply lacks… well, the power.”

 

It was a bad sign that Théoden, a mortal blind king who could not see the soul or its song, could laugh so heartily at that as if Indil had just said some truly witty joke. Indil just grinned that much harder, ignoring the wary and alternately awed look of the fellowship, as if in their minds they truly were comparing him to the power and righteousness of Lúthien.

 

“I need a drink,” Indil said, feeling himself grow resigned as he wandered to the nearest table, placing his head directly on it so he could better stare at the floor and his feet. Sauron, no, not even Sauron, the bright and fiery uncorrupted Mairon that the ring had only the barest memories of, would have flayed him in disgust.

 

“He is an odd elf by all accounts, even his own, but he does not lack for humility or humor,” Théoden explained to the fellowship, who, goddamn them all, were now wandering towards the table to surround Indil on all sides, peering down at the top of his rose gold hair as if it might give them answers to which they seek.

 

Lifting his head and giving them all a rather flat look, which must have been at least somewhat disconcerting with Indil’s forest green eyes ringed in fire, he said shortly, “No alcohol, no answers. If I must suffer through this, by Eru Ilúvatar’s glowing righteous hand, I shall do so absolutely plastered.”

 

This earned a hearty laugh not only from Théoden, king of Rohan, but from several members of the fellowship as well. Who, likely under the subtle influence of the allure, had decided that there was a strange charm to the quirky elf Indil from Eng. This, of course, only served to upset him further.

 

Théoden motioned to one of the servants, calling out for a round of the finest wine for the table, to for the umpteenth time celebrate Saruman’s glorious and gruesome demise. A celebration that had been an ongoing almost nightly tradition since the king had returned to himself.

 

In the meantime, Indil caught himself seated across from Frodo, the little hobbit looking at him closely, as if looking for someone familiar inside of his features. And Indil, staring, wondered if he somehow knew or could see, could see past the melding and forging of Indil to where the ring himself dwelled…

 

Finally, the wine arrived and a grateful Indil poured himself a hearty glass, “Ah, wine, cure for the insomniacs, repressor of terrible memories, liquid courage and damnation, you have yet to fail me.”

 

It was by chance then that Indil saw Éowyn stepping back inside the hall, looking only as if she had only spent the morning riding or else working in the fields rather than training to slay orcs, and she offered him a quick, shy, smile even as she walked towards the back of the king’s hall.

 

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Indil said as he chugged down the wine, suddenly reminded that the fellowship was not really at the heart of his problems, and that there was another very large reason he’d been intent to get out of Rohan while the going was good.

 

Then, remembering he had an audience, he gave an awkward laugh, flushing slightly as Indil, with Lily’s youth and small body mass, was quite the light weight, and said, “Oh, right, you lot are all still here. You had news?”

 

They looked at one another, Aragorn pointedly towards Gandalf who was looking at Indil as if he’d never seen someone like him before in his life. Possibly because he hadn’t, Gandalf was an istär, a bound and chained maia, he would be able to see what even Legolas could not. And Indil, with the force and song of Lily and the one ring threaded together, was like staring into the face of twin suns.

 

“Who are you?” Gandalf said, “I have never seen or heard of you before now in all my wandering in Middle Earth.”

 

“They call me Indil,” Indil said his voice for once clear and smooth and perhaps reminiscent of Sauron in the guise of Annatar or else the high priest, “I hail from a small island rainy in the western sea, farther north that dread patch of sea that was once Númenor, called Eng and Scot and next to the smaller island of Ire. I am a wanderer without son or father who is merely, at this point, a leaf on the eastern wind.”

 

“I have never heard of Eng,” Gandalf said, his puzzled eyebrows lowering beneath his wide brimmed hat.

 

“You wouldn’t have,” Indil said with a small, knowing, smile, “It is a godless rainy country that even the Valar have completely overlooked since its making. There’s nothing of interest there, Julius Caesar himself once said as much himself two thousand years ago.”

 

Plus, even when the Romans had found themselves ambitious enough to return and conquer this strange, wet, lonely island in the sea they had only ever bothered to conquer half of it. Choosing instead to erect a great wall that divided Eng from Scot and thus dividing the island and peoples on it for the rest of time.

 

“But you’re from there!” Pippin, all bright eyes and curly hair and impulsive stupidity blurted, although Indil didn’t really have room to talk. If he thought about it, he and Perrigrin Took had an alarming amount in common with how much words seemed to just fall out of their mouths.

 

“Yes, well, I also left,” Indil said, before grimacing as Lily’s memories of England took hold and her words began to leak out of his mouth, “And it wasn’t as if they appreciated me any more than I appreciated them. It’s a backward place, filled with barbarian bureaucrats who have made an artform out of sticking their heads in the dirt and filling out paperwork and winning bloody house points to win giant useless cups. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been completely overrun by Albanian vampires!”

 

Although Lily’s Lenin, needless to say, would be extremely put out if he’d been beaten to the punch by vampires of all things. Something in Indil, likely in the half that was the ring, enjoyed the thought of that.

 

Indil then stopped, looked at the others, and noted, “Albania is a land even further away that is, in part, filled with blood sucking demons… They’re having a bit of a problem with that.”

 

“Either way though, that’s _England’s_ problem,” Indil said with a dismissive wave of his elegant and pale hand, “Hardly mine, as for my own part, I’ve decided to see what Minas Tirith looks like these days. It’s been quite a few millennia since I’ve visited this strange corner of the world.”

 

Then, after taking another great gulp of wine, his eyes landed the man who would be king, Aragorn son of Arathorn, and he asked, “And what of your strange group?”

 

For a moment they looked at each other, perhaps wondering if he was some spy of Sauron’s, who had sacrificed Saruman to sink Rohan deeper into his pocket or else to rid himself of a future rival. Or, if he perhaps, was telling the truth and some other strange being had disposed of Saruman’s tower and Indil was merely taking the credit for his own foul use. However, Indil’s golden appearance or his allure must have won out as, grim faced, Aragorn confessed, “We are a fellowship of the one ring, Sauron’s ring, who were tasked with returning it to Mount Doom and destroying it there.”

 

Indil blinked, blinked again, and noted, “I can’t believe you just told me that.”

 

Aragorn only quirked his lips slightly, as if he couldn’t believe it either, yet there was no awareness inside his eyes that he didn’t have to say this, that he was indeed saying far more than he should to a stranger that all but screamed power.

 

Instead, he only, calmly, continued, “We started from Rivendell a month or so ago, intended to pass through the pass of Rohan, then over the mountains, and finally through Moria. However, we were waylaid by a balrog inside, and, in the battle lost a party member as well as the ring itself. We then fled to Lothlorien where we sought guidance and the lady Galadriel said that not was the tenth member, Lily, alive and reborn as Glorifendel had once been, but that with her we would find the ring and hope. More, that in Rohan, in Indil of Eng, unknown maia and stranger to everyone, we would find the path to answers and in turn to the ring.”

 

Galadriel, always Galadriel, even in Sauron’s memories she burned like an infernal star that simply would not fade no matter the ages that passed. Indil could almost laugh, at how easily, with only a mirror and a ring, Galadriel had unmasked him.

 

“I have no answers for you,” he said, almost with reverence as he thought of Lily and her thousands of well-trod paths philosophical wanderings, “In my world there are no true, definite, answers, merely thousands upon thousands of questions.”

 

“What do you mean?” Frodo this time, so quiet, so very observant, still looking at him and searching for something, the ring, Lily, something within his pale skin that was not quite evident yet.

 

“I mean that reality, the great song of Eru Ilúvatar, is what is perceived, nothing more and nothing less,” Indil said with a touch of distant nostalgia, “To answer any true question about the state of the world, the location of a ring, one must face the conundrum and answer if the song ringing in my ears is perhaps not an entirely different one than the song ringing in yours, or if your ears exist at all and are not simply the echo of the song ringing in mine. After years of thought, I’ve decided that I simply do not know the answer.”

 

Well, that was untrue, Lily leaned towards the negative, that reality was only ever what she perceived and therefore she could not count on the sentience, the existence even, of the world around her. The ring was far less existential and far more forgiving about the matter, firsthand through Mairon turned Sauron he had felt the cold chains of fate, and in his darkest and brightest moments he had never doubted the existence of the world itself and its suffering.

 

Nor had he ever thought of, as Lily often pondered, its utter pointlessness.

 

Indil, being a strange combination of the two, Lily in one moment and the ring in the next, thus found himself rather torn between the two explanations.

 

He caught Frodo’s eye again, saw the alarm and confusion in them, and brushed these thoughts away, “That’s all dreadfully existential and philosophic though, more to the point, I have no idea where this ring of yours is and being something of a stranger to these lands would have no idea where to look for him.”

 

“It,” Legolas corrected, with a rather odd look on his face, “You mean it.”

 

“Right,” Indil said, paling ever so slightly as he caught his own thoughtless error, “It.”

 

There was a bit of silence then, as if none of the members were quite sure how to take this point-blank refusal, until finally Merry said with narrowed eyes, “I think you’re lying.”

 

“Why would I have any bloody idea where it is?” Indil said, motioning to himself, as if to point out how very ridiculous he looked and like the last creature in Middle Earth to stumble across an artifact of great power, “If anything you should be looking wherever you saw it last, that’s always a good place to start. Although if it’s in a mine filled with balrogs I wish you the best of luck.”

 

Then, tilting his head, and allowing Lily’s words to spill out, he noted, “That, or it’s behind your _refrigerator_.”

 

In other words, if it wasn’t where you left it last, wasn’t where you expected it to be, then it was in the last place you’d ever think to look for it.

 

He wondered, looking at them, if he dared bring up the argument that perhaps the ring himself had wants and desires that did not always align with his creator’s. That it had been three thousand years and counting and even in the beginning he was a portion of fëa and not the entirety.

 

Perhaps, he thought to himself, he might point out that the ring, against all expectations, had no desire to return to Sauron’s dark hand, his own destruction by either assimilation or the fires of Mount Doom, or the enslavement of the free people’s of Middle Earth.

 

However, for once Indil’s tongue held, as he recognized that nothing in these people wanted to recognize a thought such as that one. It was easier, he thought bitterly in both Lily’s voice and the ring, if the ring itself was a mindless evil without face, thought, or gender.

 

So, with a sigh instead, he said, “Perhaps the ring is no longer a concern.”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” that was Gimli, all stocky stubbornness, pride, and indignation at Indil’s words and clearly elvish features.

 

“It has been lost for three thousand years,” Indil noted, eyes sweeping over each and every one of their sober faces, “Then found, for a brief time yes, but time has worked against it and now it is lost again deep in the pits of Moria where surely no living creature will ever find it. If the balrog has it, we would know, as I suspect we would know if your tenth fallen member had found it in desperation and despair. It may be another age and a half before we see it again.”

 

He then motioned to them, the nine gathered, and said, “Consider, for a moment, a world in which the ring is lost once again. Yes, the chance to annihilate Sauron has been lost, however, the tower of Isengard has unexpectedly fallen and only one dark tower remains in the East. The armies of the East, while large, are not insurmountable and more to the point Sauron lacks the one ring with which he might have beaten back all armies of elves and men as he very nearly did three thousand years ago. If men unite under one banner, even without the aid of the elves, if you innovate and move beyond military tactics that Sauron would recognize, you may yet be victorious.”

 

This rousing and uplifiting speech was met with nine raised eyebrows and skepticism written on each and every one of their faces. As if the very idea of giving up on the ring, of beating back Sauron’s raised armies without it, was almost as inconceivable as the ring twisting his own shape and growing a pair of legs.

 

“That’s my advice,” Indil said with a sigh and a drink, “Take it or leave it, in the meantime, I’m going to continue my way to Minas Tirith.”

 

“Oh, Indil, Gondor again?” Théoden asked, “Surely, have I not dissuaded you from that?”  


“Nope,” Indil said shortly, “It’s past time, besides, if you’re right about this steward then someone’s got to start shouting in his ear that perhaps it’s time to raise an army and prepare for imminent invasion.”

 

Indil sent a short, apologetic, glance towards Boromir whose insulted rage spoke for itself.

 

“Sorry,” Indil said shortly, and sincerely, though he clearly did not take back his words. He then took one last drink, looked across at all his new friends, and said, “Well, it’s been fun. Best of luck, comrades.”

 

And with that he was standing, the buzz of alcohol spurring him onwards to his quarters to pack the few possessions he had garnered and then crawl out the window itself if he had to. He was going to see the bloody white city no matter what ridiculous thing the world threw at him next.

 

* * *

 

 

Unfortunately, the ridiculous thing the universe decided to throw at him next was the same ridiculous thing it had started with, namely, Éowyn, daughter of Théoden king, was seated on his bed, stony faced and staring at the wall, dressed in the battle gear of a young man with a sword strapped to her waist and giving him a rather pointed look.

 

On seeing him walk in the door, a wide-eyed look on his face, she said, “So, you really are leaving for Gondor?”

 

For a moment he said nothing, just hovered in the doorway, then he moved past her and began to swiftly pack as if that alone would give her enough of an answer. He wondered just how much of that whole meeting she’d been eavesdropping on, probably all of it, Éowyn seemed very good at listening to things she hadn’t been invited to.

 

“Were you even going to say goodbye?”

 

He stopped, paused, glanced at her and said, “I announced my intentions to your father, and have been announcing my intentions since I arrived… I never intended to stay forever, you know that.”

 

“So, you weren’t,” Éowyn correctly concluded, her blue eyes growing more than a little cold beneath his own callousness. Or, rather, what she presumed was callousness but was what he liked to think of as a clean and easy break.

 

He sighed then, stared out the window for a moment at the golden fields and the afternoon sunlight, then halting his packing and sitting on the bed next to her he asked, “And where are you going without saying goodbye?”

 

She gave him a look, as if she had no idea what he meant at all, even as he motioned to her newest appearance, “What else am I to think from this? Unless this is a very strange attempt at seduction…”

 

She flushed, just as he himself did looking away from her, really hoping that this wasn’t the case even though he sincerely doubted that it was. Eventually, with a determined and not to be trifled with tone, she said, “I’m coming with you.”

 

“Coming with me?!” he almost fell off the bed, but instead settled for gaping at her like she’d announced she secretly was a man this whole time but just had a penchant for skirts, “No you’re bloody not!”

 

“Will I ever see you again if I don’t?” she asked, and by her expression she knew very well that she wouldn’t, that he was an elf or a maia or something first born or older and she a human maid, and by the time his thoughts turned to her again she will have long since passed into Mandos’ halls.

 

“Your father would never forgive me for kidnapping you,” he pointed out even as he stood and returned to furiously packing his bag, “Neither would your brother for that matter, your brother that you haven’t seen in months and who should be arriving here any minute now. You would have Rohan after your head as well as mine.”

 

“Then stay,” she commanded, looking far more like a king herself than a king’s daughter, “If you leave, then I leave, and if you stay then I’ll stay.”

 

He could outrun her easily, could slip out even now and at a pace far too fast for her or any mortal to follow, he could use Lily’s gifts and teleport far beyond her reach with ease. Yet, somehow, he didn’t doubt that she’d still follow, take to the road herself as she made her way alone to Gondor with only a blade she half knew how to use in hand.

 

More though, there was the strange thought ringing in his head as he looked down at her, so grim and so determined and so unwilling to let him slip out like a thief into the night, “Why?”

 

“Why what?”

 

“Why are you so intent on this?” he motioned to her then to himself, as if to highlight the vast differences between them for all that they were both pale and fair in hair, “You barely know who I am. No, you don’t even have any idea what I am let alone who. And more we… We belong to such different worlds, Éowyn daughter of Théoden, our paths in life are not ones that go in even remotely the same direction.”

 

Éowyn seemed unmoved by this, no, she seemed emboldened by this as if he had said everything she knew she would hear and given her the resolve and determination to fight such notions, “You’re not the type to try and determine anyone’s path in life, Indil.”

 

“It’s not a matter of paths,” Indil said drily, “Éowyn, even I don’t have the least idea where I’m going. Gondor, sure, I can head to Gondor, but after? I… I truly am a leaf on the wind and no matter the direction I travel, back to Eng or onwards to the East, it’s not a path that you can follow or should even want to. I am friendless and kinless, you are neither. Stay here, and I’m sure they’ll embrace feminism eventually.”

 

Éowyn seemed doubtful of this last bit, perhaps because feminism in and of itself was something of a non-concept. That, or perhaps more succinctly, war was not seen as a privilege by the elves but instead an unspeakable burden, this belief, in its own way, had passed to the humans who would see all but able young men take forth the sword in battle.

 

Finally, he said, not unkindly as he looked down at this young, terribly mortal, woman who dressed in the battle gear of a warrior, “A fish may love a bird, Éowyn, but where would they live?”

 

“Do you have any idea…” she paused, looked him fully in the eye, hands clenching and unclenching the rough fabric of her leggings as she asked, “Do you have any idea, Indil, what is like to sit there for months upon months and do nothing? Only capable of watching as your father loses his mind, your brother is banished, and that little worm of a man… If I stay, even if war comes, I will still do nothing. My father will send me to the caves of Helm’s Deep with the women and the children, and even if my father dies, even if my brother dies, even if every last able-bodied man in Rohan is slain and the orcs lay siege to our kingdom I will still do nothing. I… If that is my world, if that is the sea that I as a fish swim in, then it is not a world I want to continue living in.”

 

Unfortunately, he had every idea what it was to live in that world. That had always been Lily’s world, since the first moment, consigned first to her role as a house slave, indentured servant if one were to put it kindly, to her relatives, then even as Eleanor Lily Potter control of her own world, no matter her power or strength or will, slipped from her fingers. The ring, similarly, had only ever known how to wait, to wait, and wait, and wait for thousands upon thousands of years…

 

And even before then, even amid the turbulent and distant memories of Sauron himself, there was that learned, bitter, wrathful helplessness as Morgoth had twisted and defiled every proud inch of him from Mairon into Sauron until all that had been left of him was endless rage and a desperate bid for freedom, order, and control that even now plagued all of Middle Earth.

 

Perhaps, he thought, a lack of control, the chains of fate, were all one ever could know.

 

And yet, he wondered, who was he to deny her even the chance at freedom?

 

Still, setting aside his things so that he could kneel in front of her and take her calloused hands in his, he said, “It may get dangerous, I cannot ensure you will survive or you will ever see your home again. I cannot ensure your father or brother will forgive you, let alone me, no matter the favors they think I have done for them. I cannot ensure that anyone will understand let alone condone the choices you make.”

 

“But it’s still my choice,” Éowyn said, and for a mortal, you could nearly see her burning with it.

 

“Unfortunately for us all,” Indil returned with a smile of his own, a grin that was both the ring’s, Lily’s, and perhaps even a touch of Mairon’s old delighted smile in ages upon ages ago, “It is, and always will be, your choice.”

 

* * *

 

 

While Indil was all but shoving fair Éowyn the crossdressing, unseasoned, warrior out the window along with his own bag, being talked into taking her own horse since it will be all but obvious she disappeared anyway so they might as well get a good head start while Indil tried to think of a way to tactfully bring up that he didn’t know how to ride a horse (the ring clearly had had no use for it and neither had Lily, sure there were Sauron’s memories, but those were from ages ago and the required muscle memory had long since faded from them), inside of Lily’s vast and overwhelming fëa, the ring and the disembodied fëa of Lenin were predictably having a rather vicious argument.

 

“What is wrong with you?!” fire sprouted from Lenin’s pale fingers like budding flowers, twining and blossoming and reaching out towards the ring with burning, covetous, fingers.

 

The ring sang of water and earth, strange syllables that had never come naturally to a ring fashioned of fire and gold, or to the brightly burning Sauron, and watched as the flowers wilted, only to transform themselves into noxious smoke in an unholy aura about the wizard Lenin.

 

For a mortal, the ring couldn’t help but think as he whistled a breeze into the air and ducked behind another innocent piece of furniture in the landscape of Lily’s mind, the man really did have some nerve.

 

Predictably, the innocent chair blocking the ring from Lenin melted into the floor, leaving only the crouching ring and Lenin standing off as if in the midst of a duel. And with that, the ring remembered the he had once been far more than he was now, that in this moment he was more than he was if he could only remember, and gave Lenin a rather withering look, “Enough!”

 

Lenin laughed, a harsh, rather bitter sound as he motioned towards the ring, “Enough? You just kidnapped a princess, kidnapped a princess on your ridiculous quest of tourism to a city and kingdom that is about to be wiped off the map, and you think you can simply say enough!”

 

The room about them twisted, changed from the strange green and silver room that Lenin seemed so at homed in to a dark, cramped, space that could barely fit the two of them. The wall pushed in, squeezing the ring as well as Lenin uncomfortably together until they were forced to sit next to one another on the single, aged, mattress that rested there. The place was at once dark and so very cramped, a sense of quiet desolation and desperation in every inch. Yet, behind him on the walls, the one spark of life in the place, strangely realistic drawings of a tree, of a man bearing Lily’s eyes and features, and of Lenin himself in a while spacious world so different than this place.

 

Lenin sighed, exhaustion and something more tender than that sneaking into his frame, with a strange and wry smile he noted, “There, you’ve gone and upset Lily.”

 

On seeing the ring’s confusion Lenin motioned towards their surroundings, “This is the cupboard beneath the stairs, in many ways, perhaps the truest home Lily has ever known.”

 

“This is not a home,” the ring said, and by the look on his face Lenin agreed, yet he didn’t contradict his own words. Meaning that for however dark and dank this hole in the wall was, it was closer to her soul and heart than any other.

 

“You have to separate,” he said finally, and his voice was tired, tired and filled with a quiet fear that he dare not name.

 

“With Éowyn?” the ring balked, “Oh, that would go over well, I’m sure. Not to mention that the fellowship and Rohan might catch up with us at any minute and Eru even knows what will happen to us all then.”

 

“I haven’t seen or heard directly from Lily in weeks,” Lenin spat, and his eyes burned pale, far brighter and purer than even Éowyn’s dared to shine, “We may be inside of her head, but it seems like… The longer you spend as that hybrid, that walking abomination of raw power, the further she slips through the cracks in her own mind.”

 

“Slips through,” the ring said softly, eyes tracing the wall for some sign of the girl, a whisper of her somewhere, “But where would she go?”

 

“Keep at it, Indil,” the man dared him, as if he knew that he would keep going on as the fusion of Lily and the ring until he had no other choice, no matter the consequences, “And I may have no choice but to go digging through your own pretty head to find out.”

 

Outside, in the real world, he had the dimmest sense of Indil riding behind Éowyn and gripping her perhaps a tad too tightly, off into the twilight and towards the distant mountains and the bright white city of Minas Tirith. And in Indil’s features was both Lily and the ring and perhaps even the faintest traces of Sauron or Mairon buried beneath that, and Lily’s song rang out in harmony with the ring’s bright call of power that even now couldn’t help but turn eastward, and yet inside this place, this small world in Lily’s fëa, there was only the distant echo of her presence.

 

The ring’s eyes, a bright, burning, eternal and sacred flame, traced over the man Lenin’s features, and with wonderment he noted, “You love her.”

 

Lenin scoffed, eyes fluttering closed in exhaustion, a small, fond, smile twitching on his lips at the mere thought of the absent third member of their strange trio, “Love is a strong word, I like to think that I am merely accustomed to her face.”

 

Love was not a word that Sauron had thrown out carelessly either, nor the ring for all he had dabbled in it or the mockery of it in his bearer’s heads, yet for all of that he was willing to say he recognized the situation for its use far easier than Lenin seemed able.

 

Sauron had grown accustomed to many faces, as Mairon, as Annatar, then as Sauron, and yet the ring was hard pressed to say that he had truly loved a single one of them.

 

More, he thought to himself with his own sense of wonder, he could hardly blame the man for it. Hadn’t he, against all odds and all shackles of his making, forged his own sentience and reforged his hröa in a fair elven form for her if not for himself?

 

Breathing out, casting his mind out of Lily’s and into Indil’s he saw the road moving further and further ahead while he moved like a thief in the night who had stolen nothing except perhaps the fair daughter of a king who had the burning dream that she had been born a son. The moon was rising, soon would be directly overhead, and camp would have to be made…

 

“When we make camp, when Éowyn’s asleep and there’s too many orcs sheathed in darkness for the fellowship or Rohan to think to follow, we will render Indil back into Lily and the ring.”

 

And if Lenin thought that this small reprieve was not enough, that he hid behind Lily as a child might his father, then he did not say it out loud. They simply sat in silence, waiting for the moon to grow higher overhead, to outline fair and strange outlander Indil and the disguised and golden Éowyn in glowing white light.


	5. Chapter 5

There was a great shuddering, no, there was a tearing and vibration and the shuddering was merely the after effect, as the ring tore the derivative Indil back into his integral forms of Lily and the anthropomorphized ring.

 

He could not stop shaking, he felt hollow, desperate and bare though wearing the threadbare clothes picked up weeks ago in Dunland. It felt almost as if the wind was whistling through him, as if instead of shaped as a man he was once again curved with a hole in his center, in the shape of a golden ring.

 

His breath felt at once like fire and ice, rasping at the inside of his shuddering throat, his body feeling like a mockery of a maia body while the world tried and failed to reshape itself into something his eyes and mind could process.

 

The one thing he could think, the only cool and clear thought in his head, was that they had spent too long in shared form and that they should never have been foolish enough to bestow upon him a name, even one derivative of Lily.

 

Names, after all, were such binding and bitter things. By naming it, him, they had given him, shape, form, meaning, and fate. They had woven him into Eru Ilúvatar’s omnipresent song and now that he was inside the melody he could not be so easily removed. Indil had become more than simply the sum of their parts.

 

Finally, the ring’s eyes cleared, and as he sat up the world seemed flatter without Indil’s strange perception of it.

 

They were in a cave in the foothills of the mountains that marked the edge between Rohan and Gondor, just off the north-south road that would lead them to Minas Tirith. The smoke of what had once been a small fire still lingered in the air, as well as the scent of magic and the echoes of the song that Indil had whistled to ward off the attention of men, elves, orcs, and any other thinking living being that might search for them in the night. Éowyn slept in her borrowed armor and thin masculine disguise close to the fire, huddled in conjured blankets and furs Indil had presented to her. Her disguise was thin, especially in sleep, the armor was slightly too large, her face devoid of the slightest hint of a beard, but more than that she was too pretty and slender to truly pull off the look of a man with mortal blood in his veins.

 

And on Indil’s other side, deeper into the cave and away from the remains of the fire and their camp as if thrown there, was the girl Lily, eyes closed, and so deathly still and pale.

 

He moved towards her on silent, shaking feet, almost stumbling into the wall until he was standing over her, looking down at her expressionless features. He reached out, brushed his hand against her face, hot as if with fever, and then moved to clutch at her clothed shoulders with more desperation.

 

Lenin, the mortal istär that lived within her fëa was right, he thought to himself. They had been Indil for far too long, that there were consequences even to a creature such as Lily who defied consequences altogether. He had known it too, been warned repeatedly both by himself, Lily, and Lenin. Except, it had been so terribly easy to do it then just keep going. It’d been like slipping on a ring, a small slide of metal against flesh, and then he’d been more than himself without any effort at all even as all he’d gained he’d stolen from her.

 

He had used her, just as if not more than he had used all his bearers before her.

 

“Lily,” he breathed into her ear, looking for something, anything, any response at all.

 

She could not die, not truly, not even in the sense that the elves, the maiar, and the valar were deathless. She was beyond all interpretation and concept of death, the doors of Mandos’ Halls closed to her forever and always, that had been intimate and foundational knowledge for Indil.

 

This was not death, the ring told himself, it could not possibly be death. Her skin was still burning, her chest still rising and falling with breath, so she could not possibly be dead. Except, his hands were still shaking with a growing, inconsolable, terror that he had gone too far this time.

 

Even Isildur, even Gollum, corrupted, tainted, and defiled by the one ring could not bear to have worn the ring upon their fingers for weeks upon weeks as Lily had.

 

Finally, her eyes fluttered, and he felt a great wind of breath release from his lungs. She looked up at him through half-lidded, terribly green, eyes. Inside of them, somehow, impossibly, he swore he could see the light of the silmarils, the light of Valinor from the two trees that had burned out so long ago, ages before the ring’s creation. Her lips curved into a smile, amused, fond, and knowing as if she had seen more than even he had dared to, and in perfect Sindarin she said, “You never told me your name was Mairon.”

 

His soul shuddered, her words ringing inside his ears as a true binding name might, and he found he could say nothing at all even as her smile grew, her eyes closed, and she returned to feverish sleep.

 

He, however, was left behind, shaking and shuddering and feeling as if he had just been stabbed through the heart. Inside his head loops of memories that were not his, but impressions borrowed like the memories of watching a play, of ages and ages ago before Middle Earth was built and there had once been an apprentice smith, a proud, beautiful, and meticulous maia named Mairon who had burned so very brightly.

 

Even without Indil, even with the ghost of his presence, he could almost hear that shared voice quoting Lily’s words and worlds to him of replications wearing the faces of men if not their sacred flame, “The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long – and you have burned so very, very brightly, Mairon. Look at you: you’re the Prodigal Son; you’re quite the prize!”

 

Yes, Morgoth had certainly thought so, had made very good use of the tool and prize named Mairon until there was nothing left but a plague upon mankind, an almost admirably abhorrent creature who had survived age upon age when even Morgoth had long since been banished, Sauron.

 

His eyes, almost desperately, flickered towards Éowyn, still sleeping, still silent and dreaming and perfectly unaware of what had happened. If, that is, anything had really happened at all. His fingers, shaking, reached out towards Lily, rested again against her burning flesh, tracing the lightning scar on her forehead.

 

Inside of it, that single jagged rune, he felt the temptation to slip into her once again and be anything but a ring. However, before he could flatten his hand against her forehead, or use his other hand to pull her closer to him and merge them together, he stopped himself.

 

His fingers, withdrawing, were still shaking even as he forced himself to reevaluate their current situation.

 

Something of him, of his memories, of the memories before his memories had slipped into Lily’s head as easily as she had slipped into his own. Many of her thoughts, her references, her world no longer seemed as strange as they once had and if he closed his eyes then there was a television inside of his soul that played thousands upon thousands of shows and movies just as there was inside of Lily’s. Neither of them had escaped from Indil unscathed.

 

Never since Sauron had a bearer worn him for so long at a time, and Sauron and he were one and the same then, hardly similar. Even then, with the others, it was not a blending of fëa but dominion, he took and took from each of them until there was nothing left but husks. He could not do the same with Lily, or at least, he did not mean to.

 

He stood, picked up Lily in his arms, so small and so light, still growing even while her spirit burned brighter than any other soul had dared to before, and carefully placed her on the other side of the fire across from Éowyn. Staring down, he wished that he could place a set of furs and blankets over her, but such conjuring of materials from nothing was in Lily’s domain.

 

And even though Sauron, Mairon, had once been a great smith he had sang the song of steel and nothing of simple, material, comfort.

 

He then wandered out towards the entrance of the cave, staring out into the great fields of Rohan lit by the pale light of the moon. He thought of orcs, of the fellowship, of kidnapped princesses, and of Lily wandering further and further into his own mind and other parts unknown.

 

He did not know what to do, now, more than ever.

 

Only, there was still the white city, still the great white city that was once built from the ashes of the drowned Númenor and its once great kingdom of men.

 

Except Sauron, once, calling himself Tar-Mairon, the admirable king who held dominion over mankind, had laid waste to that kingdom even before Eru Ilúvatar’s flood. He had twisted the island and its people into a depraved machine, a tool for his own revenge against the Valar and the mechanisms of fate.

 

And Lily, not unthinkingly and not ignorantly, had looked at him, at the ring, and called him Mairon.

 

Whatever he was, he thought with a rather bitter laugh, whatever Sauron had twisted and fashioned his own fëa into, it was nothing admirable, and it was certainly not Mairon.

 

Still, he thought to himself, whatever he was, whatever name he wore, he’d go and see Elendil’s kingdom, Isildur’s inherited kingdom, as the armies of the east approached. It was, he thought somehow, coming full circle to something even if he didn’t truly know what that something was.

 

With a sigh he turned to the burnt-out fire and sat lamely, staring into the charred and brittle remains, and he tried not to ask himself if he would be wearing Indil’s face or his own when he saw the white towers again.

 

* * *

 

 

Dawn broke, rising spectacularly in the East as it bled across the mountains and ash of Mordor. It was such a vibrant, powerful, red, the kind that should not exist in a sunrise. Éowyn woke, Lily did not.

 

At first it was a blurred sort of thing, the golden maiden blinking, sitting puzzled and trying to remember where she was and why she was not in the hall of a king and a fine bed. He could see the flicker of remembrance, of her petitions, threats, and pleading to the foreign maiar Indil on her face and then a slight gasp as it flicked into place.

 

She did not look like she regretted it.

 

First, her eyes fell on the fire, stoked into life only a few hours before by the ring, already charred wood burning with the melody of a song more easily remembered than he would have thought possible.

 

Then, across from the flames, they fell upon Lily. The small girl in bright foreign clothes, hair a color that did not exist in the mortal spectrum, face so terribly pale, and so terribly still and unfamiliar.

Before Éowyn could reach out to the girl or else look beyond her and see the other stranger in the cavern, he placed a kettle of tea over the flames, interrupting whatever rash action Éowyn might otherwise take.

 

“We’ll need tea for this,” he said, and his own voice was unfamiliar to him, he’d been used to Indil’s higher smoother voice for so long now, “I believe.”

 

She tried to scramble to her feet, reach for the sword, but then stopped as she blinked and blinked again as if to get a firmer grasp on his features. He felt a wry smile twist on his lips, reminded now that he was no longer in a fair form that any being could handle.

 

He sat down next to Lily, fingers lacing themselves in bright red curls, considering her face and the fluttering of her eyes. The skin of her forehead still burned, the fever, the aftermath of Indil, had not yet passed over and he had no doubt it would for some time yet.

 

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed as Éowyn cautiously sat down across from him, still coiled and tense and ready to spring for a sword at any moment, but more than a spark of curiosity and awe had entered her eyes.

 

He wondered what she saw when she looked at him. He was still glowing, ever so slightly, the fires of Mount Doom, his own poor substitution for the sacred flame of a true soul, would always course beneath his skin only just below its surface. Like a lake in winter whose surface had only just frozen, walk upon him, and you’d be engulfed in fire.

 

Certainly, he thought, he would not look like anything human.

 

Finally, her voice rough from hours without use as well as his own presence, she asked, “Who are you?”

 

He did not want to answer that, he wasn’t even entirely sure he could, not truly, if only because he didn’t know the answer to it either. Oh, the one ring, certainly he could say that (if Éowyn was even privy to what that really meant) but what was that really? Even at the time of his forging, even after all those practice rings, all the other lesser rings and Celbrimbor’s magnum opus in the three, ringcraft had been such a new and unexplored thing.

 

In truth, none of them had known what they were doing, not Celbrimbor, not the lesser smiths of Eregion, not even even Sauron poised as Annatar himself, the self-proclaimed lord of the rings.

 

So, for once, rather than giving her the alarming partial truth, he decided to give her the more disconcerting fuller version, “I don’t know.”

 

“You don’t know,” she repeated dumbly, but she looked torn, as if she wasn’t quite sure whether she wanted to believe this was the most clever and philosophical thing she had ever heard or if he’d been kicked in the head by a horse.

 

That was the trouble with philosophy and doubting your existence, he thought with some mirth, the answer could very well be either.

 

“No,” he repeated with confidence, “But then, I wonder who does?”

 

“What?” she asked, brows furrowing, even as he continued on in a rather whimsical almost Lily mood himself.

 

“Take yourself, for example, running away dressed in the clothes of the Rohirrim, you’re not looking exactly comfortable or confident in your place in the world,” He said, motioning to her, as she looked down almost offended as if there was nothing wrong with what she was doing and the act of doing it proved she had a better grasp on herself than he did.

 

This, perhaps, was true, but he was setting a record-breaking low bar when it came to existential drama.

 

“Anyone who says they know exactly who they are and what they want has either by some miracle reached enlightenment or is even more clueless and deluded than the rest of us,” he said, eyes drifting towards the tea kettle, reaching into his pack to take out three cups, the last with a hesitant worried glance towards Lily, as he waited for it to whistle.

 

She swallowed, seemed to have lost track of the conversation at some point when he was talking, and then pinched herself rather harshly as she accused, “You’re stalling!”

 

His golden eyebrows raised, a gesture inherited undoubtedly from Lily who in turn had inherited it from Lenin, and he said simply, “Perhaps.”

 

She reached for the sword, standing and pointing it down at him, her eyes burning with determination as she asked, “Who are you really? And where’s Indil?!”

 

Oh, well that was an even worse question, wasn’t it? The constituent parts of Indil were right here, spread out before her, it just would take a little bit of elbow grease and a total lack of regard of consequences to assemble him again. Somehow, he thought drily, she wouldn’t like that answer.

 

Not that he hadn’t thought about it, the night had been long, that hollowness had just gotten worse, and every second Lily kept sleeping he’d thought about this moment and how much easier it would be if Ilyn was here. Even for two seconds, enough to throw Éowyn at the fellowship then sprint to Gondor, that was all he’d told himself he needed.

 

Except, every time he thought that, every time Indil existed in the world, it seemed he was needed one second or one moment longer. It became harder and harder for him to disappear, to fade into oblivion, until all that would be left of both was Indil and his strange legacy. More, he had the feeling that if he gave in now, even for a second, then Lily would slip back into their shared memories until she could never be recovered.

 

So, when the sun had peaked over the horizon, he’d already known, that to wear Indil’s face now, even for a second, was to destroy Lily completely.

 

However, there was no answer he could give, truth or a pleasant fiction, that Éowyn would accept.

 

“Indil doesn’t really exist,” he finally said, deciding, oddly, to settle on the truth.

 

She certainly didn’t like the truth, her sword did not waver, but gleamed in the growing morning light as well as the light of the fire, “What?”

 

He looked at her and was it strange that he could so easily feel her falter beneath the full weight of his gaze, of the force and allure of the one true ring that would bind the souls of all men just as it bound all rings?

 

“He is a dream dreamt by a ring who didn’t even have the decency to be forged in the sacred flame as all other thinking creatures and a little girl born outside of Eru Ilúvatar’s great song entirely.”

 

At that he paused, wondering, for an odd and truly surreal moment if Lily was perhaps not Eru Ilúvatar himself, merely caught in this bizarre avatar of a mortal child…

 

Éowyn was not caught by such musings as she hissed, “What does that…”

 

The kettle whistled, interrupting her, and he smiled as he noted, “Oh good, the tea’s done, and with perfect timing.”

 

He felt oddly like Bilbo Baggins, interrupting all sorts of tense and awkward moments with a bit of tea and good old hobbit common sense. Perhaps, he thought to himself, he had picked up more bits and pieces of all his bearers than he’d thought, rather than just Lily.

 

He filled the three cups, placed one in front of the sleeping Lily noting that he would tend to that later, another in front of himself, and the third passed to Éowyn who did not take it. She stared, utterly bewildered and thrown off balance, especially as with a smile he noted, “One cannot hold a sword and drink tea at the same time, my friend.”

 

Slowly, hesitantly, she put down the sword and took the tea. She looked dazed though, as if she was not quite sure what she was doing or why she was doing it, caught in a dream. Hesitantly, awkwardly, she sat back down and faced him directly, blushing as he continued to smile across at her.

 

Finally, voice oddly quiet and hesitant, she asked, “Will he be coming back?”

 

He thought about it, looked over at Lily, and he hated himself that the true answer was, “Yes, I’m sure he will but… But not until she’s awake again, it’s… He’s not supposed to exist.”

 

Except he did now, they had even named him, no, more than that they had given him gender, histories, legacy, and even the budding of friendships. Whether he was supposed to exist or not he had now been brought into the world and that would have to be that.

 

At being reassured, even rather lamely, something in Éowyn seemed to deflate and the glamor that she had rebuffed hit her with full force. She stared at him with a slightly open mouth, eyes wide and dilated despite the light coming off of his skin, and distantly she remarked, “You’re very pretty.”

 

He just drank his tea, not willing to participate in this sort of a conversation, certainly not with Éowyn daughter of Théoden. He wasn’t entirely sure why, he thought to himself, but something was disappointed by this. Unsurprised, certainly, but more disappointed than he’d expected to be, as if he had wanted her to somehow trump the ring’s allure in a way no mortal being could.

 

Instead of noting on this, or remarking that her tea would get cold if she kept wasting time staring at him, he asked, “So, Éowyn, what are you going to do?”

 

“What?” she asked, shaking herself out of her own stupor.

 

“Your father is looking for you, undoubtedly your brother is as well, and I’m certain the fellowship is looking for me,” he said with some bitter mirth, “More, your Indil, unexpected maiar knight in white armor that he is, will not be returning for the foreseeable future. So, what are you going to do?”

 

She flushed, whether out of embarrassment or lust for him he couldn’t quite tell, and her voice shook even as she tried to sound confident, “I don’t see why my plans have to change.”

 

Now it was his turn to look at her rather dumbly, and he parroted back to her in a disbelieving tone that did not suit his smooth voice, “You don’t see why your plans have to change.”

 

“You said Indil’s coming back, didn’t you?” Éowyn challenged, looking bold enough, but a little too dazed to again question why it was that Indil left her with these strangers in the first place.

 

“Well…” he trailed off, not quite sure how to put, yet again, that Indil was technically here if Éowyn tilted her head at the right angle. She’d find everything she needed or wanted in the ring as well as Lily, she just might not like the fact that half of what she wanted happened to take the shape of a twelve-year-old girl.

 

“And Indil was only part of the reason I truly left,” Éowyn concluded, now grinning with determination, “So I’m afraid that I’m not going anywhere.”

 

Oh, what joy. Except, he wasn’t quite upset, mostly he wasn’t sure how he felt. He liked Éowyn, he supposed, she had this indomitable mortal fire in her that he’d always admired in people. He wasn’t sure which of them, him or Lily, had been the one who spurred Indil to spirit her away in the first place, but he supposed some part of him must have been amenable to the idea.

 

Still, he couldn’t help but point out, rather drily, “You know, for all you know, I could have murdered Indil in the night and devoured his flesh.”

 

(Eru, he thought, Lily really was rubbing off on him in the worst of ways.)

 

Éowyn spluttered, gasped, blinked at him again and then narrowed her eyes as she said, “That’s not funny.”

 

“No, it’s not,” he agreed, not needing to point out that Éowyn was being particularly naïve and dimwitted and if she had any sense at all she’d just leave already and realize that something really wasn’t right here. That one did not simply talk to the ring.

 

Finally, after a breath, Éowyn said, “I trust you, I know it’s strange, especially given the situation, but I trust you and I believe you.”

 

Of course she did, he thought to himself, his nature allowed nothing else. Isildur, even on the edge of Mount Doom, even after he had seen the ring for what it truly was, has trusted him as well.

 

“And if you are going to Gondor, to meet Indil, then I am going as well,” she finished, as if there was nothing wrong with this amended plan of hers.

 

He wanted to tell her no, to go back home anyways, to leave her to the orcs and the fellowship and whichever found her first. However, maybe some part of him really had been involved in Indil’s final decision, because he didn’t. He held his tongue and sipped his tea and thought that, perhaps, it was not so bad that Éowyn was on this strange quest of his to see Minas Tirith.

 

What she would do then, what he would do then, he had no idea but… She was not out of place on this fellowship of tourism he was slowly but surely forming.

 

Carefully, with the tea now cold, he lifted Lily’s head and tilted the tea into it, watching as, in feverish half-sleep, she painfully swallowed each drop. He just stared down, his expression flat, searching for something within her that he couldn’t name.

He wondered where her mind was now in fever dreams, was she lingering in her own memories, in Lenin’s, in the rings, or in Sauron’s.

 

So many worlds, too many, now existed inside her head.

 

Éowyn just watched this, packing up her gear and saddling the horse, with the strangest look on her face. Something puzzled, covetous, and ashamed for the coveting and the desire.

 

With Lily in his arms, Indil’s pack upon his shoulders, he climbed up onto the horse and after Éowyn, holding Lily between herself and him, slowly trotting down the foothills until they would reach the north-south road once again but this time without Indil’s wanted face resting between them.

 

Out in the open, facing the east, he could more hear that desperate, endless, song of fate, binding, and a one ring to rule them all from the last remaining dark tower of Middle Earth. The heat of Sauron’s eye, even from here, was noticeable and threatened blisters against his pale skin. His fëa, in yearning and fear, shuddered and trembled beneath its far-reaching gaze.

 

And all he could think, as he, Éowyn, and Lily galloped off towards the kingdom of Gondor, was that he had not even given her a name, could not find one inside him, not the joking insult Cracker Jack, the deception Annatar, the simple descriptor the ring, a borrowed epitaph Sauron, or even Lily’s whispered memory of Mairon.

 

Still, even without a name, she had not left.

 

* * *

 

 

Days were spent on the road, and with what was undoubtedly the greatest streak of luck the ring had ever had, there was no sign of the fellowship on their trail. Perhaps this was because Éowyn had swiftly abandoned the north-south road for the forests beside the mountains, realizing perhaps that her father truly would send men after both her and Indil (even if Indil conveniently did not exist at the moment), and that they traveled rather quickly all considered, but all the same staring back behind them and straining his ears Indil could neither see nor hear horses.

 

Lily, however, remained in a sort of daze, waking every so often only appearing to not wake at all. She’d spare a glance towards Éowyn, distant and filled with light, look out towards the river, the forests, and the mountains, and then look back over towards the ring once again before curling into him without a word. Her eyes, he thought, just seemed to become more alarming and less human the longer they went.

 

Still, in a surprising turn of events, they arrived at the hill overlooking Minas Tirith unmolested. It was as he remembered, white and gleaming, carved into the side of the mountains and towering above golden fields, the river running alongside it.

 

In the sunlight, it looked like a star that had fallen to the earth, the towers and spires the beams of light reaching out from its heart.

 

Éowyn stopped the horse, staring out at the great city, and he wondered if she had ever seen it before.

 

Looking over it he announced, “Minas Tirith, City of Kings, and redemption of the island of Númenor.”

 

Éowyn turned to glance at him, a question in her eyes, but at his patient smile she flushed and turned away. Time spent with him, he thought, had somehow made her more susceptible to his allure rather than less. As if comfort in his presence had dulled her suspicions.

 

All the same, she urged the horse onward to rejoin the road towards the wide gates of Minas Tirith. There they were stopped by two men in gleaming armor standing guard, Éowyn’s horse rearing as they looked at them.

 

And here, the ring thought to themselves, they went.

 

A ring in the form of a maiar, a passed-out red-headed adolescent human girl, and a poorly disguised woman in the gear of a warrior of Rohan all walk up to the gates of Minas Tirith…

 

He had no idea what the punchline of that joke was supposed to be.

 

They looked, first with bafflement at Éowyn, then their eyes drifted over to the ring and they were utterly lost. Where Éowyn had tried to hold onto her suspicion and distrust, these men were gone in an instant, lacking her nobility, strength of will, or the hardships she had endured which had sharpened her fëa like a blade.

 

Their faces became slack, their eyes wide, and when they stared at him they could look nowhere else.

 

And suddenly the ring had the feeling that this would all be very easy.

 

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he said, and at the sound of his voice Éowyn glanced backwards at him as well, though her eyes slightly brighter and clearer and at least able to glimpse that something very strange was happening.

 

One of the men reached forward, hand shaking as if despite himself, toward the cloth of the ring’s leggings. The ring glared down at him like a particularly unamused and fickle god.

 

“Myself, my daughter, and my humble guard seek lodging inside your great city,” he said, then, with a glorious smile that Annatar would have shuddered at, he asked, “May you please let us in?”

 

They dumbly nodded in tandem, motioned them through, which the ring accepted with a graceful waive, “Thank you, gentlemen, for the record I also enjoy long walks on the beach.”

 

Inside, hopping off the horse and walked down the street with Lily curled in his arms. As he stepped through he thought that it was just as white on the inside as it was on the out, still so bright after all this time. However, looking up and eastward, there was a shadow so terribly close overhead.

 

“How did you do that?” Éowyn asked in amazement, still looking back towards the guards who were only now dumbly shaking themselves out of their stupor.

 

“Oh, you know how easy it is to get what one wants with a pretty face and a few kind words,” he said, giving her a rather pointed look, as Éowyn herself was rather pretty and had undoubtedly used it to get what she wanted (or attention she didn’t want) time and again.

 

Éowyn flushed desperately, tried to ignore his good humor at her expense, and insisted, “That is not what that was! That was… They didn’t even ask where we were from or why we came from Rohan or anything about what we were doing!”

 

“Perhaps, Éowyn daughter of Théoden,” he said after a moment’s pause, eyes searching out a convenient inn, “It is simply that I am simply prettier than you are.”

 

He didn’t look to see her reaction, likely utterly flabbergasted by the choking sounds she was making, but instead observed the people. They did not look as they had three thousand years ago, poor and dressed in worn faded browns. There was a sense of poverty and misery to most of them that was juxtaposed with the majesty of their city.

 

The shadow of the east, he thought, had infected the people of the city like a cancer until the gleaming city itself was only a husk of what it had once been. White, not as a star, but instead as bleached bones.

 

Finally, they reached an inn, a hole in the gleaming white wall on the outer ring of Minas Tirith just inside the gate with a small stable where Éowyn tethered the horse. Inside it featured a pub akin to the Prancing Pony, filled even at midday with a small collection of alcoholics. He glided to the innkeeper, who, as the others, was staring with dull fascination at the ring’s golden humanoid form and was lost in his glowing red eyes.

 

“Afternoon,” he said smoothly, a gracious and kind smile curving at the corner of his lips, “I require a room for my wife as well as my daughter.”

 

Éowyn shot him a glance at being referred to as wife, undoubtedly thinking she made a very convincing man (she didn’t), but the innkeeper hardly seemed to hear him at all or note that his “daughter” was looking very ill with something that could be infectious. Instead, he breathed, “Oh, yes, you must stay, you must stay as long as you like.”

 

He had forgotten, he thought dully, for how much he loathed this it was also so terribly convenient to always be wanted beyond the reason of men, elves, dwarves, or even hobbits.

 

“Thank you, good sir,” he forced himself to say, but there was no longer any pretense of politeness inside it, just a dull resigned sort of impatience as he reached into his pack to find some of Lily’s conjured gold. The man, however, stopped him.

 

“No, no, you and your family pay nothing,” the man insisted, hesitating over family as if he didn’t like the word, didn’t like the idea that the ring was attached but was so overwhelmed with awe and desire that he could not think to do anything about this.

 

There was an echo of Lily’s thoughts in his head then, about automatons, empty machines, and the pretense of sentience that could sometimes exist in mortal and immortal beings.

 

The room they were given was overly large, likely the most expensive and furnished room in the inn, and featured a single large bed and a smaller one for the child. Carefully, without looking at Éowyn (who was still in some sort of stupor at being given the room on top of being so easily let into the city itself), he set Lily down upon the blankets and tucked her inside of them.

 

He stayed there, seated and staring down at her, and once again felt that hollowness inside him as he wondered what she was thinking behind those closed pale eyelids.

 

“What was that?” Éowyn asked, voice shaking, and then another question, more desperate and slightly afraid as well as awed this time, “And who are you really?”

 

He looked over at her, at once found himself almost pitying her, because she did look both awed and afraid, perhaps for the first time realizing that he and she truly did live in two separate worlds. That Indil had not been incorrect to compare them to a bird and a fish.

 

“Either you have already guessed,” he said, voice perfectly calm as he waited and watched and wondered what she would do, “Or you will have no idea at all even if I were to tell it to you plainly.”

 

“But you haven’t told it to me plainly!” she cried out in frustration, nearly tearing at her golden hair and looking very tempted to flop backwards on the bed and have some sort of fit.

 

How often, he wondered, had Théoden spoken of the ring? How often had Wormtongue? Had she even heard of the one ring or Sauron lord of Mordor or did such concepts and names not enter her small world?

 

If he told her, started from the beginning and the forges of Eregion and the arrival of the stranger Annatar presumably from the west all the way to the end and his arrival inside of her hall with Lily as his bearer, what would she say?

 

It might be interesting, he thought, it’d be the first person to see him face to face for what he really was since Saruman in Isengard. Except, that had gone so well, hadn’t it? And he didn’t…

 

It would be nice, he thought, to hold onto this strange domestic illusion, whatever it really was, a little while longer.

 

So, he said nothing, merely stood and turned towards the window to overlook this doomed city. The black gates had not yet opened, the armies of Mordor did not yet march, but they would soon. Especially, he thought, with the fall of Isengard and the ring nowhere in sight, if Sauron was to take the east before Rohan could muster aid to Gondor, then he must do so now.

 

Invasion, even if there was no sign of it yet, was imminent and Gondor was nowhere near ready.

 

Except he was not ready for the sacking of Minas Tirith, he thought, or the destruction of Gondor and the last remnants of Númenor. This had been… They had been his enemies, Sauron’s enemies, true but there had been such nobility and honor within them, both in the creation of their kingdom and their final stand against him with the elves.

 

They had transcended their humanity and it was a man who had cut the ring from Sauron’s finger.

 

That, he thought, meant something and he could not simply let it vanish into thin air as so many other kingdoms had before it. It was not time yet for the age of orcs and annihilation.

 

It seemed he was going to have to get himself an audience with the steward and that could be… very interesting.

 

There was a sigh, movement, and he glanced over to see Éowyn standing next to him and staring out into Minas Tirith, towards Rohan, with him. A hand under her chin, glancing at him, she asked, “Why doesn’t it bother me that I know so little about you? Or that it has been days and Indil has disappeared into thin air?”

 

Because you’re a mortal fool, he was tempted to say, but he considered it. She wasn’t really a fool, even if she was mortal, and certainly there were larger and greater fools in the world even among those that were immortal.

 

Instead, he said, “Perhaps you see something of him in me.”

 

Half, he thought to himself, half of Indil existed within him. Or rather, half of him burned inside of Indil. She looked at him again, eyes wide, and seemed to recognize the truth of that in some bizarre manner. He wondered, for a moment, if she was going to ask if he was Indil’s mysterious twin brother.

 

She didn’t she just stared, and eventually, with another desperate flush, tore herself away and through herself exhausted onto the bed and on top of the covers while he just smiled out at the horizon.

 

His was proving to be a rather odd fellowship.

 

Eventually when he was sleeping, he turned and sat once again on Lily’s bed, stared down at her face, and wondered what she would make and say to all of this. She was probably laughing, somewhere inside of that head of hers, he was certain she was in hysterics.

 

Smiling, he felt his eyes flutter close, as sleep, or what passed for sleep among the maiar, overtook him, and he began to drift into his own memories, Sauron’s, and the slightest hint of Lily’s that still lingered inside of him.

 

* * *

 

 

When he opened his eyes, in the world of his memories, he was standing in Celebrimbor’s gardens. There, he saw as he looked to his left, were the fountains and benches crafted and designed by the elves of Eregion, Celebrimbor, as well as the maia smith Annatar in a kingdom that no longer existed.

 

The air smelled not so much of the colorful roses that twined themselves in the gardens, or the lavender, or even the herb garden in the distance. Instead it smelled like honeysuckle, sweet and pleasant, and in its own strange way he thought it smelled of murder.

 

Memories of Celebrimbor, associations with him and his home, would now and forever remind him of the broken and bleeding banner that had been formed from his defiant corpse. The strange peace of this kingdom, the three hundred years of pretense and discovery, was always juxtaposed with the violence of its utter destruction.

 

He did not like, he thought to himself, to dwell on the fate of Celebrimbor.

 

He found himself sitting on a bench under the moonlight, staring out at the gardens and the stars above them, and Lily was sitting beside him as if she belonged in this garden as much as he did with the mortal Lenin nowhere in sight.

 

Staring down at her, taking in her green eyes, now bright and perfectly aware, as well as that small fond and knowing smile, all he could somehow think to ask was, “Where is Lenin?”

 

“Lenin’s confined to my thoughts and memories,” Lily said, folding her hands together and now looking out past him and into the gardens, the stars and flowers reflecting in her eyes even in the dark, “Right now you and I are drifting closer to your memories than mine.”

 

He didn’t know whether it was the dream state he was in, the reminiscing he was indulging in while his mind wandered, but that did not seem so jarring and seemed more than possible. That Lily, somehow, had found her way into the memories he barely possessed from just before his creation.

Before it had all gone terribly wrong.

 

“You’ve been thinking about Celebrimbor quite a bit,” Lily said, interrupting his own thoughts and startling him.

 

“Have I?” he wondered out loud, he didn’t think he had, at least not consciously. Although, he supposed he had been dwelling on many things of the past recently, things passed out of time and memory. On Númenor, on Mairon’s descent into Sauron, and even on Celebrimbor.

 

Things and memories that weren’t even really his, but rather, belonged to the impression Sauron had left inside of his forging and then in the years that Sauron had worn the one ring upon his finger.

 

“It’s weighing on you,” Lily added, and at that he wanted to say that perhaps it weighed on Sauron, since they were his memories after all.

 

However, after a moment, he thought better of it and held his tongue. Instead, with a sigh, he looked out at their surroundings and said, “Three hundred years, for three hundred years there was the act of Annatar, this charade… Even for a maiar, three hundred years is not easy, and the longer he played at it, we played at it, the less of an act it truly became.”

 

It would not be in Elrond’s history of the events, nor in Galadriel’s, nor in any elf or maiar who had lived to tell the tale, but he and Celebrimbor truly had been friends. Up until the very end and the forging of the one ring there had been true companionship, a sharing of theories and ideas, between them.

 

Not all of it had been pretense, it couldn’t have been, Celebrimbor would have seen and known that for what it was. For all they said of his generosity, his kindness, the man had not truly been a fool. Indeed, he had, in the end of things, forged the three after all.

 

The true lies, the good ones, the kind that could last for centuries, were the ones you could almost believe yourself.

 

“And yet,” he said, and here a note of grief he had not realized he possessed, entered his voice, “We still killed him. He had forged three other rings, exquisite and more powerful than the other sixteen that he had known, and he kept it from us in that sliver of doubt that was later proven all too correct. We asked him where they were, he didn’t tell us, and so Sauron tortured him with every torment we had learned so well in Angmar, but he still didn’t tell us. Then, with his knowledge still hidden and the rest of him broken and useless, he was made into an example. His corpse, bleeding, was twisted and refitted into a banner for war to strike terror into the elves while Eregion burned and disappeared from Middle Earth.”

 

There was no smoke in the gardens, no hint of blood, and yet there should have been because he remembered that all too well too. He remembered standing in the middle of it, laughing, except not even feeling humor because it had never been funny.

 

“The thing is, Lily,” he said, his voice now shaking along with his hands, “I look back and I have no idea why I did it.”

 

She was staring at him, straight into his eyes, as if she already knew what he was going to say before he did but let him say it anyway. Let him laugh in horror and terror at himself as he continued, “Only that the bitterness, that all consuming bitterness within our soul, was a dark pit, and that we had fallen age after age into it so that even after Morgoth’s banishment into the void we kept falling until we could not remember even the concept of peace or free will. The inconceivable idea that we had a choice, that we could simply stop.”

 

He motioned to the gardens in all their splendor, all their wonder, and cried out, “Annatar could have been more than a thin disguise! True, he was not an emissary from the Valar, true we had not returned to Valinor at Morgoth’s defeat to face trial for our sins, but by god we could have been Annatar!”

 

And some part of him wished that they had, knew that the three would have simply disappeared somewhere for better or worse, that Celebrimbor would never tell him but also would never die, and he could still instead be sitting in the gardens of Eregion with Celebrimbor sitting beside him.

 

Except, no, he wouldn’t be. That would be Sauron in the guise of Annatar, and the ring would never have existed in the first place.

 

So, he sighed, the vision wilting out of him, and with a wry smile said, “But these aren’t my memories, I am the ring, there is no sacred fire inside of me, only borrowed fëa, and no true memories of my own.”

 

“Still,” he said with sudden conviction and determination, sitting in the memory of a garden which had once existed, “I am certain that Sauron will destroy us all if only because that is what he had done time and time again. He has been forged into a machine of desolation, both by Morgoth and by himself, he knows nothing else.”

 

Middle Earth, he thought, was made of the same kindling that Eregion and Númenor had been.

 

“Still,” Lily mused, placing her hand into his with a smile, still fond even inside of a garden filled with honeysuckle, “There is something almost admirable, almost human about it, that desperate cry of despair and a freedom in a world that is so tied to fate.”

 

And he wondered, for a strange soft moment, if the reason that Lily had slept so long and so deeply was so that she could tell him that inside of Celebrimbor’s garden.


	6. Chapter 6

“I can’t believe you’re still here,” Lily announced to the blinking only half-awake Éowyn as she rolled off the bed and onto the wooden floor.

 

One would think, that after having been comatose for several days, that Lily would show more wear and tear or else a slower more gradual recovery. But as he’d returned from his own mental wanderings into the land of the living he’d found her already staring out the window, taking in the sight of white city for herself, looking and acting as if nothing had happened at all and they were easily picking up where they’d left off just beyond the gap of Rohan.

 

Well, that was something of an exaggeration. She looked paler than normal, even for her, and her eyes were still that unnatural bright shade of green that they’d been when she’d first woken from the fever. Perhaps most damning and obvious of all was the Westron that now flowed naturally out of her lips when only a few days before she had barely spoken a word of it.

 

Still, there was something off about it, a hint of something foreign that laced itself not only in the sound of her words, but the very words chosen in and of themselves. Already, her own dialect was forging and reforging itself until it could match her native callous English wit.

 

She was still quintessentially herself, he thought, and yet there was something added to her, something of the ring now burned inside of her even without it resting upon her finger.

 

Éowyn, like many or perhaps all, did not know what to make of Lily’s rather blunt opening statement or the girl herself. He had not asked what, precisely, Éowyn had expected of the unnamed girl when she woke but evidently Lily’s casual disregard, off-putting confidence that masqueraded as charisma, and odd accent were not it.

 

Lily, he thought to himself, had all the raw power of Sauron, far more than the raw power of Sauron, but made a point of lacking any of his desperately refined charm. There was no guise of Annatar for the likes of Lily. Had she wanted revenge on the elves and dominion over Middle Earth, she simply would have walked into Eregion one day sacked it and then walked right back out after sticking a flag in the ground and proclaiming it all good and done in time for tea.

 

This made for a rather unsettling and unorthodox combination.

 

Lily spared him a pair of raised eyebrows and crossed her pale thin arms over her chest, still clad in her English brightly colored tunic, and rather accusingly asked, “Didn’t you tell her to go home?”

 

“I reminded her that it was the reasonable option,” he said as diplomatically as he was able given the ridiculousness of her question, ignoring Éowyn’s shocked and undignified spluttering at both Lily’s question and his own lackluster response.

 

“Reasonable option’s a bit of an understatement when there’s a possibility of being eaten by mutant elf cannibals,” Lily said rather blandly, now looking over at Éowyn as if she really couldn’t quite understand why the ring hadn’t left her in the cave when Indil split apart. As if, had it been her instead of him, she’d have had no problem teleporting Éowyn back to Rohan and leaving her at the front gates.

 

For a moment he was tempted to point out that, even if he currently had the full shapeshifting arsenal of a maia rather than the forms of a ring and a man, not all beings could travel instantaneously and just dump the woman off home and be done with it. More, leaving Éowyn in the wilderness to fend for herself would undoubtedly have only caused more problems. Far better to bring her to civilization and Minas Tirith than leave her for the wolves and the orcs.

 

Except he didn’t say that, instead, a peculiar thought struck him. Cocking his head and eyeing her more critically, he asked, “Weren’t you the one who offered to take her with us in the first place?”

 

Lily paused, eyebrows lowering and brow furrowing as she thought back to the hazy memories of Indil, likely as oddly dim and hard to grasp for her as they were for him. Finally, she murmured, “I… suppose, I couldn’t exactly tell her what choice she should make, and I’d probably make the same one in her place, but… I thought it was you?”

 

He opened his mouth to deny it then closed it, once again not entirely sure which of them had been the one to push that particular decision through. It had seemed… Both had recognized and empathized with her situation in one way or another, both had hardly blamed Éowyn for her feelings and decision as they had both attempted similar things themselves, and yet here both would have said that put in the same situation again they would have left Rohan without her. So why was Éowyn here?

 

Once again, in retrospect, he found himself unnerved by the prospect and nature of Indil who seemed to come to decisions that neither Lily nor he were willing to do on their own. More, indeed, than the sum of his parts.

 

Well, he thought as he glanced over at their lost princess in question, for better or worse she seemed to belong in this little troupe of his. A woman dressed in the clothing and armor of a man, the little immortal alien in the guise of a little girl, the one ring in the self-forged hröa of a maia, and the unseen fëa of an istär clinging to Lily’s memories out of sight but never quite out of mind. If they walked into a pub in Bree they could be the beginning of some abysmal joke.

 

With the morning sunlight streaming through the window, with the three of them awake for the first time and staring one another in the face, taking in each of their own bizarre appearances, their eccentricities were made that much more glaring.  


“Forgive me,” Éowyn said rather forcibly, holding her hand out towards Lily as she tilted into a slight bow, flaxen hair shielding her face from view, “I’m afraid I had not caught your name…”

 

Lily now spared him a far more exasperated and disapproving look, “You mean you didn’t even tell her?”

 

“She didn’t ask,” he responded, much to Éowyn’s mortification if the flush growing on her cheeks was anything to go by. Still, he thought, he was almost surprised she was able to ask now.

 

To confront him directly seemed to take a great effort of will, he had thought that would extend to Lily as well for merely being in his presence, or else that she would hopelessly overlook Lily as Saruman had in Isengard. However, while it still didn’t seem to occur to Éowyn that she hadn’t asked for his name, she seemed wary and insulted enough to insist upon Lily’s.

 

“If she’s joining the fellowship two: _electric_ boogaloo you should probably tell her,” Lily insisted, ignoring Éowyn’s confused mimicking of Lily’s words as if by repeating them she could possibly understand what they meant.

 

While he was just mildly offended that Lily thought she could sneak a term like electric boogaloo into any respectable language.

 

“The fellowship two?” he couldn’t help but ask, suppressing a wince at having thought a similar thing himself not so long ago. She really had rubbed off on him in the worst of ways.

 

“Sure, you, me, Lenin, and I guess Éowyn on a quest to see things, do stuff, not get thrown into mountains, and eventually get back to good old _England_ ,” Lily said with far more enthusiasm and passion than she had ever displayed for the noble quest of the first fellowship.

 

“I think we need a better tagline,” he muttered to himself, except all that he could come up with was Bilbo’s old insistence that he wasn’t on an adventure thank you very much but was on a walking holiday. Nothing terrible could ever happen to you on a walking holiday, it simply wasn’t allowed.

 

“And I think that I would really like your name at the very least,” Éowyn cut in, hand now removed and back at her side while she seemed to vibrate with irritation. At seeing him glance at her she looked back at him before flushing and redirecting her gaze towards Lily, still apparently not quite able to meet his eye.

 

Lily stared at her blankly for a few moments, an odd sort of grimace on her face, and after a rather lengthy pause, she decided to again not answer the request but instead look at him and say, “This is weird, you have to tell her.”

 

He most certainly did not have to tell her anything. In fact, he had made it a point of not telling the princess of Rohan anything for days on end and it had all worked out perfectly fine! He had not told anyone anything in three thousand years, since his making if not thousands of years before that as Sauron, and just because Lily had gone and ruined all of that did not mean he had to start making a habit of it now.

 

Rubbing at the back of her head, sighing, she gave him a look and said, “Seriously, Mairon, if you don’t tell her then I’m going to have to and we both know that’s going to be tactful and pleasant—”

 

“Why’d you call me that?” he interjected, cutting her off before she could even finish her thought. She blinked at him, once, then twice as if she had no idea why he would sound so alarmed by that simple sentence.

 

“Well, it’s your name—” she started but he stepped closer, pale hands twitching as they hovered over the blue sleeves of her cotton tunic.

 

“It’s not my name, I don’t—”

 

“Then it’s the closest thing to a true name that you have,” she said with mild exasperation as if he was being overly dramatic just for the sake of drama. Then, lifting her head to stare directly into his eyes, she commented with a strangely amused awareness as she stared deep into the very center of his being, “More, you, I think, have come closer to earning it back for yourself than anyone else.”

 

Lily then looked back towards Éowyn, apparently done with him for the moment, and decided to proceed with her tactless introductions, “Right, I’m Lily, extradimensional tourist, recent and least popular member of the fellowship of the ring, the greatest thing since Glorfindel to rise from the dead, and apparently the most powerful thing Arda has seen since… ever?”

 

She glanced at him as she said this, as if for confirmation that yes, she was more powerful than Luthien, more powerful than Sauron had ever been, more powerful he suspected than Morgoth who had made it his purpose to defile Middle Earth even in the midst of its creation. However, he thought as he still was moodily coming to terms with Lily’s latest and most emotionally charged name for him, he was hardly going to give her the satisfaction of saying it out loud.

 

Besides, he couldn’t help but think it would make much difference to the likes of Éowyn. When you reached that level of power, Sauron, Saruman, Galadriel, Morgoth, and Lily all started to look the same. Éowyn lacked the understanding of the great song, of the soul itself, to understand just how terrifyingly brightly Lily burned and how much more brightly she burned even compared to the might of Sauron who was the last left in Arda of his power.

 

The truly great and terrible powers left in Middle Earth had departed for the west or the halls of Mandos, were banished beyond all scope of Eru Ilúvatar’s creation, or else bound and shackled into the forms of old men and balrogs and only Sauron and the ring remained. Their truly great accomplishment, not that they had conquered, but that like a reed bending in the wind they had survived age upon age…

 

“This over here is Mairon, except he doesn’t like to be called that because he’s going through a major existential crisis,” Lily said, motioning towards him and completely ignoring his growing ire, “He’s spent the last three thousand years as a piece of jewelry at the bottom of a river and then at the bottom of the mountains, all with the quest of somehow getting his inanimate self to the east and—”

 

He interrupted forcefully, “That’s enough, Lily, I think she gets the idea.”

 

He did not need her to tell the woman the full truth of the matter, about the ring and Sauron, even what she had said now might be… He glanced over, caught Éowyn’s eye who was still staring dumbly back at him. The relief bubbling in him felt rather odd, that she still had not put two and two together, perhaps was incapable of enough thought in his presence to put two and two together.

 

Or else simply did not know enough, or consider it possible enough, to put two and two together.

 

“Right, well, anyways, together when our wonder twin powers activate we turn into the lovable and quirky maia Indil, who you already met so… hello, again, but for real this time,” Lily said rather awkwardly, that stupid cheerful grin stretching across her lips. The grin that Indil himself had given entirely too often while at Rohan, that irrepressible reaction to any situation that had grown too strained and too awkward as it often had in Edoras…

 

Éowyn’s mouth fell open ever so slightly in recognition, her face paled, and she looked as if she wished she could deny it but suddenly seemed to see far too much of Indil in this overly cheerful and overly confident brash adolescent girl. Which, of course, only made Lily grin harder and resemble Indil all the more.

 

He turned to look at Lily, his mouth hanging open as well, and before he could stop himself he asked, “Must you say everything in the most tactless manner you can possibly devise?”

 

“…Yes?” Lily asked, cringing, another expression all too reminiscent of Indil in the midst of hopeless social panic before diverting the topic, “So, army, the army Gondor doesn’t appear to have, and the army that Sauron’s going to use to invade any second now… What are we going to do about that?”

 

He missed when she hadn’t been fluent in Westron.

 

“Do you really think you can change the topic just like that?!” he asked, and as his irritation and amazement grew the fire beneath his skin flickered and the words of binding threatened to write themselves in golden-red script upon his skin once again.

 

Forcefully, he breathed out, attempted to remain calm and drifting and felt the fire of his heart slink backwards through his veins and leave his skin pale and unmarred. Even when the truth, as always, was just there beneath the surface of his skin.

 

“I thought we were done,” Lily said with a rather unsympathetic shrug, apparently not having noticed his breathing exercises, “I’m Indil, you’re Indil, we’re Indil, it’s not that hard of a concept. Besides, somebody had to say it.”

 

Nobody had to say it! He had been fine not saying it for days now and Éowyn other than the occasional question and wary glance had seemed more or less willing to accept it. Still, he couldn’t even hiss that but instead a defiant, “We are not done!”

 

Lily gave him a rather nonplussed and once again exasperated look and muttered ruefully, “You and Lenin really are painfully similar sometimes.”

 

Before he could comment on that and dismiss any similarity to the man inside Lily’s head, Lily shrugged haplessly and asked, “Well, alright then, what else is there to say, Mairon? I mean, if we’re not getting into epic history or over the top philosophical conversations.”

 

“We do not need to discuss that either,” he said, this time with more amusement then he was willing to show. It was just the sort of nonchalant and irritating answer he would have expected of her, if only this time in Westron instead of her native tongue.

 

For all that he was bickering with her again there was a not small part of him that was relieved to be able to bicker, to see her up again as if she had never left.

 

The world had been… strange and empty without her in it. Dully, he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like if and when she returned to her home country, her home world, and there wasn’t even a shadow of her left behind.

 

“Really?” Lily asked, summoning an apple for herself out of the air itself and chewing on it with a casual disregard that would have been the death of a lesser being (while Éowyn’s jaw dropped that much lower in sheer amazement), “Because that I could actually understand. You sort of have a lot of unresolved issues. I mean, that makes a lot of sense and I hardly blame you, even Lenin has his own brand of existential angst and he makes a point to avoid that on principle.”

 

He could only imagine what kind of temperamental existential crisis the mortal spirit trapped in Lily’s mind could possibly throw. He was about to comment as much, and conveniently deflect the topic from himself, when Éowyn finally found her voice, “Wait, you mean you are… You both are… What?”

 

He blinked, looking over at her, and was chagrinned to realize he had almost forgotten she was there at all. Much the same way that Saruman had forgotten about Lily in the presence of the one ring, the eye he had always thought had no choice but to turn to Lily. Except, and it was strange, but between the fellowship, Saruman, and even Éowyn he wondered how it was that he was the only on that seemed to believe that.

 

“Indil,” Lily said, as if this wasn’t absurd, and only required a one-word answer. On still seeing the princess’ confusion and alrm Lily held out her hand towards him with a sigh, an offering or else a demonstration.

 

He stared at it, at her small, steady, pale hand turned upwards towards him.

 

“Mairon?” she questioned.

 

And he wondered if that was what it looked like when he dangled so invitingly, enticingly, from a chain in the firelight…

 

“We should see the city and if we can gain an audience with the steward,” he said instead, grabbing the key off the desk and making towards the door to leave this suddenly stifling inn room.

 

Lily dropped her hand, at first looking nonplussed, and then looking at him with an all too knowing amusement, “Now who’s avoiding the topic?”

 

She said nothing else though, contented herself to follow him out the door and stand in his shadow while both turned to look at the princess. She stood in the same place she had since scrambling to her feet at seeing Lily awake and well. She stared, in a daze, at the pair of them and he could see her fitting the pieces together then discarding them only to refit them together once again as she searched for the familiarity that was all too present.

 

And in her borrowed clothing she looked impossibly lost and out of place, a too small thing in a too large world who never should have thought to leave Rohan.

 

“Éowyn?” he asked, and it felt oddly… personal, too intimate for the little they truly knew of one another but he couldn’t think of some other name worth bestowing in hre. She started, blinked, stared at them and with a familiar determined look on her face followed them out the door to play the role of their personal guard in the great white city.

 

And not once, for the first time since she found herself waking up to his face, did she ask about Indil.

 

* * *

 

The higher into Minas Tirith they climbed, the further from the great gate and swell of poverty, and the more it began to resemble the kingdom that he couldn’t help but remember with some mix of bitterness and fondness. In the white walls of the fortress turned city the faces of those old and ancient mortal kings looked down at them from marble statues with solemnity and honor. Even now, after three thousand years, their hands clasped the hilts of their swords as they prepared to defend mankind from the vengeance of all the ancient ills of Middle Earth. This, Gondor, now served as the pride of man in all Middle Earth where once, in the second age, it had been thought that that role would always be served by Númenor.

 

While the walls still glittered in the sunlight in the upper rings of the city it was the beds of scarlet flowers over windowsills, the iron gates before marble homes, and the pair of armed officers in gleaming steel that caught his eye and interest. This, he thought, was where one started to ascend from merchant to nobility and finally at the very peak of the city to the hall of the king.

 

Though of course, he thought with a glance towards Éowyn, it was nothing like Rohan.

 

As they climbed they gained a better view of the mountains so close to the east which served as the border to Mordor. Ash spewed from Mount Doom, the sky an oppressive black heavy with storm clouds and heat, and even in midday there were great thunderstorms taking place beyond the mountains, lightning trapped in the clouds by the heat and flashing at irregular intervals.

 

The east had not looked like this, he thought, when Bilbo had borne him to Erebor all those years ago. Sauron’s power was so heady now, so present, that you could almost taste it on the wind. If he stared long enough through the cracks of the mountains, he thought, then he would not be surprised if he could make out the great eye of Sauron staring down at him in a ring of fire...

 

“Well, that’s suitably ominous,” Lily said, darting towards the outer wall and darting out onto it with her usual odd adolescent grace to stare at the dark kingdom only just hidden from sight.

 

It certainly was, he thought, but more than that, “He’s nearly ready.”

 

“Ready?” Lily asked, glancing back at him.

 

“To open the black gates,” his voice sounded distant even to his own ears, and though he had said it recently and often enough, though there was the odd and unexpected hope in the defeat of Saruman, he could not help but feel as if the enormity and immanence had not hit him until now.

 

Mordor was going to invade.

 

Mordor was going to invade within weeks if not days and the city was not ready.

 

Aside from the gleaming guards at the city gates and the inner circles of the upper crust there was not a sign of a soldier in sight. There was no army here as there had been no army in Rohan and if there was not an army then Gondor was out of time in a way that even Rohan had not been out of time with its king a puppet for Saruman and its warriors banished.

 

“Mairon?” Lily asked, but he didn’t answer, instead took a breath and strode up towards the hall of the king and the white tree of Minas Tirith still alive after all this time.

 

“Gondor is not ready for invasion, and invasion is coming, I guarantee it,” he said, perhaps a bit too loudly as he walked, but his mind now was whirling in a past which was only his by proxy. Even if Gondor had not been so terribly, easily close, he was sure that Sauron would have made a point to sack it first and foremost. Before Rivendell, before Lorien, he would wipe Gondor and the remnants of Isildur’s line from the face of Middle Earth.

 

“Their only hope now,” he continued, “Is to plead for aid from Rohan.”

 

At that Éowyn started, glancing at him before quickly glancing away again. However, she didn’t stay dazed for long, opening and clothing her mouth as they reached the upper level of the city managing to pass by every guard who crossed their paths with only a look from him. Finally, just as they passed the white tree, she asked, “Could you… Could Indil do something?”

 

He stopped dead in his tracks.

 

It was such a pleasant day, he thought, the sky an endless blue with only a few rolling white clouds from the west. The air of early Spring was that mild pleasantness that had yet to turn into an oppressive summer heat. Yet for all of that, and for all that he was made forged from fire, he felt cold.

 

He turned his head slowly to stare at her, and there must have been something in his eye then, something reminiscent of Sauron that she paled and almost seemed to shrink before him, “Why would these people, Éowyn of Rohan, ever turn to the likes of me in their darkest hour?”

 

It would be, in its own way, to forge him their king and champion. Tar-Mairon in all but name and the irony would be so bitter that the entire kingdom would choke on it.

 

When Boromir, first born son of the steward Denethor, had argued for the use of a ring as Gondor’s weapon against the might of Sauron the ring had laughed. He had laughed himself into hysterics even when he had been incapable of mirth. Such an action, as Aragorn son of Arathorn had so easily and vehemently predicted, would be the destruction of Gondor.

 

Still Éowyn did not quake, shiver, yes, but she stood her ground and pursed her lips and did not run back to the inn or even further than that to Rohan. He would give her that, at least, she had honor and bravery even if he sometimes suspected it was mostly bullheaded stupidity.

 

“One of these days,” he said in a lighter and far more resigned tone, “You’re going to get yourself killed, little princess.”

 

She blinked but said nothing as he turned and made his way down the final stretch of the pathway, past the white tree and into the hall of Denethor unquestioned with an adolescent girl and a rather effeminate guard trailing behind him.

 

Inside, the greatest of the kings of Gondor guarded the hall as marble statues, light poured in from high arched windows onto the floor of dark and light marble. In here was, again, that old nobility of Gondor and what had once been Númenor. Yet, he couldn’t help but think, like the city itself it seemed itself an odd shell of sorts that had been made into a home by more conniving creatures. After an age, three thousand years, and the death of Isildur Gondor had declined and rotted until all that was left of it was the shadow of its past in haunting architecture of this great city.

 

Even here, inside this hall, there was that terrible suspicion growing inside him that it was already far too late.

 

Then of course, he made the mistake of looking towards the throne. There, sitting ill-suited upon the iron throne was the man he assumed must be Denethor II, steward and protector of the kingdom of Gondor in the absence of Aragorn son of Arathor, the true heir to the throne. There was something almost vulgar in him, despite the finery of his robes and his cleanshaven face. An odd inherent juxtaposition with the title he had carved for himself and his sons that he could not rid himself of no matter how he tried.

 

However, his eyes did not linger too long on him, because in front of them, as always with the absolute worst timing in the world, was his eldest son Boromir accompanied none other by Gandalf the Gray and Legolas Thranduilion, prince of Mirkwood. With, undoubtedly, the rest of the fellowship loitering either in Rohan still or else in some pub or another awkwardly waiting for the news from the steward or else hoping to stumble across Indil who had told them time and time again that he was heading to Minas Tirith at a moment’s notice.

 

And he had about two seconds, as Denethor slowly lifted his baleful head to stare at the strangers opening his hall, to run out the door or stand his ground and pray that Mithrandir’s eyes were failing him.

 

His hand, instinctively, reached out for Lily’s and despite his inhibitions, despite his common sense, despite all the trouble it had brought him and her even more so, he thoughtlessly flowed into her once more until standing there as if he had been there the whole time was Indil of Eng.

 

Opening his eyes, their eyes, it was as if everything slid into place. That hollow center, the circle of the ring, was now filled and he could feel that other piece of himself, settle back into his soul with a delicate and easy grace. The light seemed brighter and clearer as it slid in through the windows, shifting as he could make out every particle of dust floating in the air.

 

And for the moment it did not matter that the fellowship was here, that Éowyn had seen him for part of what he was, or that it was far too soon and far too quick to be without consequence. He was… He was here, a twisting of fëa more intimate than any the ring had known before with even Sauron as his bearer, and that was enough.

 

Well, Indil thought with something of a grimace, it would have been enough it wasn’t for the fact that he had unwittingly stumbled out of the frying pan and into the dumpster fire. As it was he was beginning to get that worn and weary feeling that, surely, it was five o’clock somewhere and that the fellowship was just bound and determined to drive him to alcoholism.

 

That, or he was just so non-functional in any kind of social situation that alcohol had somehow seemed like the best solution. Although, given that Sauron had never been all that inclined to wine or drunkenness, the ring’s bearers had lost the taste for it, and Lily had never had a taste of the stuff he had no idea where this inclination was coming from. Except, perhaps, that Lily had gleaned it from television, so god forbid he disagree with her inherited wisdom now.

 

Except that he was nowhere near a pub, was grinning like an idiot, and getting gawked at not just by Éowyn but by the steward of Gondor and his three guests as well.

 

“Hey,” he said stepping forward and trying not to wince at the way his greetings echoed off the stone or how his leather boots squeaked upon the marble tiles. Next to him Éowyn didn’t walk but instead gaped in horror and amazement as she now had the physical proof that Lily was neither insane nor a liar and that Indil, whatever he was, was nothing more than a construction of the pair of them.

 

Or at least, so it seemed from the outside in, but Indil formed now of the ring and Lily, shared his doubts with the ring that giving him name and breath was a far more dangerous thing than any of them had realized. Names, melodies of a song, once brought into the world could rarely be simply plucked out.

 

“Funny running into you people here of all places,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets and rocking back and forth on his heels as the four continued to stare at him, “Although, I only came to discuss politics with the steward, so I suppose if you’re taking care of that then I’ll just… You know…”

 

First there was silence, then, Gandalf looking between him and Éowyn with a sort of wary-eyed confusion, then this seemed to give way to amusement and he had the nerve to laugh. He threw back his head and shook at first with chuckles and then true unstoppable mirth.

 

Probably having figured out that crossdressing Éowyn had bullied and guilt tripped Indil into kidnapping her to the great white city of Minas Tirith. Which, he couldn’t help but flush desperately wanting to die right there, pointing at the old man and shouting, “Oh you and I both know you would have done the exact same thing!”

 

In fact, he had done even worse, he had bullied Bilbo Baggins, a respectable hobbit of the Shire, into leaving his home with thirteen dwarves on a quest to steal a kingdom back from a dragon! Indil was about to say as much when, for once he caught himself and realized that he wasn’t supposed to know that, was likely not even supposed to know of Bilbo Baggins.

 

It probably wouldn’t have helped much anyway as the bastard just laughed that much harder now earning the raised eyebrows of both Boromir and Legolas who looked helplessly at him then back at Indil.

 

Next to him, stepping up to view his face more closely, Éowyn breathed a word in wonder and terror, “Indil.”

 

He froze, stared back at her, whatever pretense of cheer he put on drifting from him as he murmured under his breath so that only she could hear, “It’s not half so impressive as it looks, I promise.”

 

Except it was, it truly was, in ways that Sauron could not have ever fathomed when he forged the one ring so long ago.

 

“Is that…” Legolas said, stepping forward and staring with narrowed dark eyes towards Éowyn who did her best to reassert herself in the most pitifully masculine manner she could devise.

 

“My humble effeminate guard, yes,” Indil said, stepping back and slapping Éowyn across her armored shoulders as if they were brothers, “Very pretty for a mortal, isn’t he?”

 

Perhaps he was being too harsh on her, he thought, in a crowd or among many similarly dressed warriors and boys she would not look out of place. Even now, if she cut her hair short, she would simply appear a young man not yet grown enough for a beard or else barring that someone with more elven blood in his veins than most. It was only by herself, standing next to Indil, that she looked so hopelessly like a princess in borrowed clothing.

 

Gandalf only laughed harder and Indil bitterly hoped the old man choked on his laughter and died of it.

 

“Well then,” Indil said instead with a rather rueful and self-deprecating smile, tilting forward into the slightest of bows towards the steward, “I’m afraid I have no business here and must bid you _adieu_.”

 

He straightened then paused, giving Éowyn a rather significant look, and speaking softly only to her he said, “This may be your last, easy, path out of this, Éowyn. If you were wise, you would take it and not look back.”

 

She would simply stand here or just outside the door, wait for them to finish, and one of them would surely escort her back to Edoras and the king. Then, just like that, Éowyn’s door to his world would close shut forever more and she would be safely in the mortal realm once again.

 

And even if she regretted it or wondered what if until she passed through Mandos’ halls she might also wonder at the life she forged because she had not chosen to follow.

 

He made to exit then, cloak sweeping behind him as he walked towards the doors, the guards at the entryway, and then Minas Tirith itself but the sound of swords unsheathing stopped him. Glancing back, he found Boromir of Gondor with a blade in hand evidently willing to take the step that the older and more tempered Prince Legolas would not.

 

“Stop,” Boromir said, “By order of the steward of Gondor you will not leave here!”

 

His hands were shaking and Indil wondered if he, first of all men, would be able to raise a sword against him and strike him with a killing blow. That he had had the ability to draw his sword at all spoke of something, surely, though Indil did not know what that something was.

 

“It would a pity,” Indil remarked mildly as he looked back with an almost fond smile, “To stain these ancient and noble halls with blood. I just can’t think it would match the décor.”

 

For a moment he stared, smiled, and watched quietly as an uncertain and shaking Boromir sheathed his weapon as he suspected all men must sheathe their weapons at the sight of him.

 

Then, because there was no use in running forever and he had nowhere in the world to be except Minas Tirith, Indil noted, “If you truly do need me, you or the rest of the fellowship that you’ve so diplomatically hidden from the steward’s sight, I will be in the cheapest inn you can find closest to the gates of the city. But somehow, I think you have far more important matters to attend to than that.”

 

After all, Indil, the ring, however much these people had deluded themselves were now far less pressing than the armies of the east and the torches that needed to be lit to summon Rohan.

 

And with that he left, silently and dramatically walking out of the building and into the sunlight with not one of them tearing after him. Not one, except, of course Éowyn herself who was looking brighter eyed, less dazed, and far more accusing than she had in days. A true warrior in her gleaming armor.

 

Stopping only for a moment, to glance and blink down at her, he asked with a fondness that surprised even himself, “Why, Éowyn, am I not in the least bit surprised?”


	7. Chapter 7

“You’re really not very bright, are you?” Indil accused, gesturing wildly to a very unamused and uncomfortable Éowyn, still disguised as a young boy wishing he’d hit puberty already.

 

Indil was a few pints of rancid, cheap, beer in and had no inclination to slow down. Even if his head felt a little light, his sense of balance was dreadfully off, and anything and everything was pouring out of his mouth. He’d decided that wasn’t his problem, because none of this was really his fault, Indil hadn’t asked to exist after all.

 

No, he’d just sort of been shoved into existence by smashing two very distinct personalities together. And if he tried to make the best of it, live up to his potential and then some, was that really his problem?

 

No, of course not, that was the problem of his lesser halves: the one who couldn’t quite decide if he was Mairon and of course Lily. Of course, he didn’t want anything bad to happen to either of them, especially not to her (the ring contained enough self-loathing that Indil was finer with terrible things happening to him), but he really didn’t see what he could do about it.

 

He wasn’t about to go unmasking himself with the fellowship abroad. They’d tar and feather him the second they found out. Well, no, they’d tar, feather him, tie him up, and cart him all the way to Mount Doom where they’d gleefully throw him in.

 

And didn’t that sound like fun?

 

But more than that, right now his problem was the problem child, the problem woman as it were, Éowyn who didn’t know when to get the hell out of dodge.

 

“I misjudged you,” Indil bemoaned to his utterly unsympathetic audience, “You seemed unnaturally bright at times, or inconveniently intuitive at the very least, but here you are anyway. Honestly, what is wrong with your decision making?”

 

He motioned grandiosely to himself, ignoring the bemused looks he was getting from the pub’s other midday patrons, “I’m making better decisions than you and I’m wasted!”

 

And that really was embarrassing, the first born tended to have more composure than this, and certainly were never wasted this few of glasses in. From those dim memories of being Sauron he never remembered trouble holding his liquor, drunkenness had been an anathema to him then. Indil, however, appeared to be the ultimate light weight.

 

Maybe it was the fact that he had the combined body mass of an inanimate object and a twelve-year-old girl.

 

Éowyn, apparently, was not to be deterred though as instead of drinking from her own glass (her first glass) she leveled him with an accusing look and asked, “Are you really not going to answer any of my questions?”

 

She had a point.

 

After she’d followed him out onto the terrace, he’d promptly walked past her, ignoring her until they reached the inn where they were staying, and when there he’d headed immediately to the pub where he intended to wait for the fellowship to arrive. She’d been sitting her watching him drink ever since.

 

“I need a few more drinks before we start that,” Indil said, motioning for the bar maid to fetch him yet another glass of the house brew (which really could use some work), “And besides, did you not hear me when I talked about birds and fish? That was a great metaphor!”

 

Really, even days later, even having been unforged then reforged again he was very impressed with his own wit regarding that one.  

 

“I remember the bird and fish,” Éowyn responded without an ounce of enthusiasm, in fact she said it with clear growing irritation.

 

“And after all that, you’re still here,” Indil said, now gesturing to her wildly, “I just don’t understand you.”

 

“Don’t you?” Éowyn asked, finally appearing to have reached the limit of her temper, “After all of that, don’t you think I’d be the least bit curious? That perhaps I deserve, at the very least, an explanation.”

 

“What’s to explain?” he asked with a sigh, “You’ve heard the spiel already.”

 

True, Lily hadn’t exactly said it like a poet, but she had gotten to the heart of the matter as well as he himself could. Indil wasn’t really a person, instead he was the combination, the dream, of a little girl who wasn’t a little girl at all and a ring. That Indil now considered himself a man of sorts was nothing more than folly and was liable to lead him into trouble and heartbreak.

 

He could not afford to forget what he truly was.

 

“You mean what the girl said,” Éowyn prompted, looking a little offended, which having spent only a morning in Lily’s conscious presence was a bit much.

 

“She’s not wrong,” Indil pointed out, now a little offended on behalf of one half of his soul, “She usually isn’t, she can’t help it if you don’t happen to like what you hear.”

 

Éowyn pounded her fists on the table, leaned forward with eyes blazing, and shouted, “She said that you didn’t really exist! That you were just somehow her and the other one, that man, fused together!”

 

“And?” he asked, taking another sip of the beer, which was actually becoming more bearable a few glasses in. Maybe another few glasses and he’d actually enjoy the taste, well, if he was still sober enough to manage the task of drinking at that point.

 

“And how is that even possible?”

 

He gave her a look, one inherited no doubt mostly from Lily, “Do you really want me to get into details?”

 

She flushed, looked down at the table for a moment, and then looked back up with the sort of confidence she really didn’t deserve int his situation, “Yes.”

 

“Well,” he said after a moment’s pause, “You certainly don’t lack _chutzpah_.”

 

The trouble was that in the details lay the dragons, the ultimate truth of what the ring was, that damnable truth he did not wish to confess to anyone in this world. Perhaps that was the reason Indil existed, was more than a thin veneer, because even the ring wished to wipe the truth of his existence from this world.

 

Still, he thought as he looked at her, she deserved something for her effort.

 

“The man isn’t really a man or an elf, but rather, a maia,” or close enough to one to count anyway, “Do you know what that is?”

 

“Um,” Éowyn started, blinking, clearly never having bothered to learn these finer details of the first born before. And why should she? It was hardly any of her business. More, the smaller aspects of what it meant to be first born were often kept from mortals. Not because they were any dread secrets, but that they were private enough that the elves did not feel like sharing them with their mortal cousins.

 

Men already were bitter enough over the differences between their races. Why add any kind of fuel to that fire?

 

“To you, the maiar would be much like the elves, but one very large difference is that the maiar have the ability to take many different forms. They are less bound to their hröa than any other race in this world,” such as the wizards, he thought, who had been shackled into the form of old wizened men to do the valar’s bidding in Middle Earth.

 

Sauron was one of the last, true, maia left on mortal ground.

 

“So, you’re saying that you’re really him but in a different form?” Éowyn concluded, only for him to shake his head slowly.

 

“Not quite, it’s a little more complicated than that,” he said with a rather sheepish grin, “It is though, in part, what makes this, me, possible. There is also the girl.”

 

“The girl,” Éowyn started, eyes widening as if she had almost forgot about Lily. Which, again, he still couldn’t quite understand. He supposed next to the allure of the ring, Lily was almost forgettable, but from his own perspective passing her over seemed such a strange thing to do.

 

He opened his mouth, then closed it abruptly.

 

What in all of Morgoth’s hells was he supposed to say about Lily?

 

Did he start with the fact that, you know, she may look like your ordinary adolescent girl but she’s really not, except she doesn’t look that ordinary, but you know what I mean. We’re pretty sure she’s not human, except sure her parents seemed to be human enough, except they were from an entirely different dimension that not even the valar were aware existed.

 

Which, did you know that bastard Eru Illúvatar dimension hopped to other places without even telling us about it? Or worse, he didn’t know about it, and what kind of a god is he then? No wonder Melkor and company went off the deep end!

 

Anyway, she was born from this race that’s for all intents and purposes men (although with the alarming reality warping abilities that only belong to the first born here) except she’s not really like them either.

 

So, she doesn’t know what the hell she is either, and I certainly don’t, but anyways she sure is something terrifying and when you take one already fairly powerful thing and smash it together with another even more frighteningly powerful thing you apparently get me!

 

Isn’t that wonderful?

 

Yes, he was not going to say any of that.

 

“She’s an _alien_ ,” he stopped, and immediately winced, well he’d just come out and said it hadn’t he?

 

“A… what?” Éowyn asked, looking somehow more alarmed and confused than by the first part of his explanation.

 

Oh, right, they didn’t really have a concept of aliens here in good old Middle Earth, did they? That was something he’d picked up exclusively from Lily who had no trouble imagining strange sentient beings appearing out of the void.

 

Indil had to remember that he was currently living in a universe where the sun and the moon were literally giant glowing fruit.

 

Which, now that he thought about it, given that Lily was possible there was now a disturbing possibility that maybe Morgoth wasn’t currently floating in an infinite vat of nothing. True, he’d been banished to the void, but Lily herself had essentially come from the void that was not Arda. What if the void wasn’t a void at all? Morgoth could have landed on some asteroid out there in space and was currently cultivating an alien race of shadow demons who would enslave and eat them all.

 

That was something that someone, somewhere, should probably be concerned about…

 

“Indil?” Éowyn prompted, and he remembered that he had larger problems than worrying about Morgoth’s alien invasion and apocalypse.

 

Well, he’d already started this with his foot in his mouth, he might as well go all in.

 

“Lily isn’t from Middle Earth, but she’s also not from the west either, she’s from a world parallel to ours where things are… Vaguely similar, I suppose,” he said, although they really weren’t, after all you couldn’t really say your societies were similar when in her universe goblins ran the banks.

 

Éowyn looked like she was having a very difficult time putting this all together.

 

“I told you that you didn’t want the details!” he spluttered, before rubbing his temples and sighing, “Look, the important thing is that Indil, me, is really just a combination of the two of them. And that’s it.”

 

He really couldn’t think of anything else worth telling her.

 

For her own part she seemed to be stunned into silence as well, could only stare dully at him as she watched him finish off the glass. Though really, he should never have ordered another glass, if he had any more he’d have to crawl his way upstairs.

 

Finally, in a voice that was curiously soft, she asked, “But, what does that mean?”

 

He didn’t know.

 

The ring didn’t know, Lily didn’t know, and he certainly didn’t know either. Only that it was something almost bittersweet, whatever his existence meant. Something that, even while he felt the joy of being alive, that odd sense of completeness, seemed to drive him to heartbreak.

 

How long, after all, could he afford to exist without consequences?

 

“Ah,” he thought as five rather distinctive and familiar auras made themselves known at the entrance of the pub, “Right on time.”

 

He did not bother to turn around and face them, Indil was certainly distinctive enough for them to find without his help, but instead waited as their footsteps drew closer. And what a range of footsteps it was, the stomping of the dwarf, the heavier footstep of men, the wizard’s staff tapping on the wooden floor, the silence of the elf…

 

“Gentlemen,” he said without turning around, “I’d offer you drinks, but I’m afraid I’m not quite that liquid.”

 

Well, he was, given that he could form gold from nothing more than a song on the wind, but they didn’t need to know that.

 

Boromir was closest to his back, yes, even now Indil could feel that terribly mortal heart of his. Weak, perhaps, but at its core it was mostly mortal and eager for vengeance and triumph. Reckless, brave, and with the type of honor that was liable to corrupt him entirely.

 

“So, you came to Minas Tirith just as you said,” and that was a little more entertained sounding than Indil would have wished for. The wizard, of course.

 

Indil turned, and there they were, the five warrior fellowship members in the flesh. Boromir, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and Gandalf the Gray, only Lily was missing from their formidable ranks. Though, he wondered if any of them truly missed her unnerving presence in the slightest.

 

Between the five of them, diverse as they were, they looked hopelessly out of place and like the end of some cosmic joke. After all, in what universe did a dwarf and an elf walk together into a pub?

 

“Indeed,” Indil said, as if he was in on the istär’s little joke as well, “I suppose I am a man of my word.”

 

“And the princess?” Boromir asked through clenched teeth, fingers clearly itching to draw his sword as they had in his father’s hall.

 

“Unfortunately for all of us, I am hardly responsible for her decisions,” he said, ignoring Éowyn’s affronted and betrayed expression (she deserved every word and she knew it just as well as he did), “But take a seat, why don’t you?”

 

They looked rather uncomfortable with that suggestion, or at least, most of them did. However, eventually he wizard took the lead and sat himself next to the disguised Éowyn with a fond and mirthful smile, and the others then followed suit.

 

“You’re here early,” Indil said with a pleasant smile when they were finally all sitting, like they really were all old pals and wasn’t it delightful they could share a drink, “I had thought you’d spend a bit more time with the good steward.”

 

In fact, if they had to talk to the man, whittle him down into a reasonable position, and gather the rest of the troops (which in this case apparently meant bringing Aragorn and leaving the hobbits behind), discussing what to do now, and then making their way here to confront Indil they shouldn’t be close to being done yet.

 

If they were here now it either meant they had managed to convince the steward in one sentence or else the man had thrown them off his lawn.

 

By the sudden, embarrassed, grimace on Boromir’s face it was the second.

 

“That is hardly your business,” the man hissed, earning looks of rebuke from his comrade, “You should instead be explaining why you’ve abducted a princess!”

 

“Abduction is a strong word,” he responded, and he really was channeling a lot more Lily today than he did on a normal basis, “Besides, I’m inclined to believe she abducted me.”

 

It had been her horse, after all.

 

“And you have better things to do than nag at me for decisions she’s made,” Indil pointed out, motioning to Éowyn as he remarked, “The woman is fine. Crossdressing, sure, but everyone has their hobbies. I personally enjoy watching exceedingly violent plays.”

 

(Explaining Lily’s love of Die Hard and the like didn’t translate well into Westron. Of course, neither did any of her other favored hobbies.)

 

“Indil!” Éowyn hissed, clearly meaning to say that whatever he was doing it wasn’t helping anyone’s cause.

 

“Frankly, I’m far more interested in what’s happening in Gondor,” he said as if she had never spoken, “It was why I went to see the steward, after all.”

 

“What do you mean?” this was Aragorn, a more measured and wary tone than Boromir was capable of, there was none of Boromir’s rash mortal action in his voice. Aragorn had paid for the sins of his ancestors.

 

It was that which had won him the regard and respect of the elves. Looking at Legolas, young as he was for one of the first born, his people would not suffer a second Isildur.

 

Still, his voice was clear and sober as he responded, “I mean that Mordor is ready. Today, tomorrow, soon the black gates will open and from what I have seen Gondor is not prepared.”

 

“What would you know of Gondor’s preparations?” Boromir asked, leaning over the table before anyone could get even the slightest chance to interrupt.

 

“Enough,” Indil said, “Certainly enough to know that, at the very least, Rohan must be summoned to aid as quickly as possible.”

 

“Calm yourself, Boromir,” Legolas said, glancing at Aragorn who perhaps realized it was best that he held his tongue (no doubt his advice was not wanted by the man, not in the city of Gondor as king in exile), “Whatever he is, whoever he is, he is not wrong.”

 

Boromir bitterly held his tongue, held Indil’s eyes for a moment, and then shifted to look at Éowyn, “Forgive me, my lady, these aren’t words that you should hear. As soon as this is finished, I’ll see to it that you are escorted back to Rohan.”

 

Éowyn looked suitably affronted by that, chivalrous though it was, and scathingly remarked, “You would send me back to Rohan when we are discussing whether Minas Tirith will be under siege?”

 

Boromir spluttered hopelessly even as Éowyn concluded solemnly, “Gondor does not have the men to spare to ship me back to Edoras, not until after the fighting is done. Whatever my fate is, it is now shared with the people of Gondor.”

 

Noble, but not fearless, she had spoken of the fate that would await her should Rohan be sacked. Deep in the pits of Helms Deep with the women and the children as orcs ran through each and every man of the nation. He was certain she did not imagine a different, kinder, fate for her here in Minas Tirith.

 

“And did the steward agree?” Indil cut in, “That Rohan must be summoned and invasion is nigh, did he agree?”

 

Their silence, ominous and out of place as it was in their surroundings, spoke for itself.

 

“Aragorn’s presence in this city,” Boromir said, a note of pure bitterness in his voice, eyes flashing as he looked over towards Aragorn son of Arathorn and the one true king of Gondor, “Does not aid things.”

 

“Oh, you can’t be serious,” Indil said, “Now is not the time for squabbles of kingship. Good Lord, if the city is sacked then your father won’t be king anyway. If he’s going to lose the throne, he can at least do it without being surrounded by the corpses of his countrymen.”

 

“My father will not lose the throne!” Boromir hissed, casting his eyes about for eavesdroppers (unnecessary as Indil had been dutifully deflecting attention away from himself and Éowyn even before they stepped into the place), “There is another path to victory.”

 

“If you’re planning on relying on divine intervention, I hate to tell you that it took Sauron converting all of Numénor to Satanism and their invasion of the heavens last time. And even then it wasn’t exactly in favor of mankind,” save for those who had been branded elf-worshippers and already fled to the soiled continent of Middle Earth, the entire island and all of mankind with it had been drowned.

 

Point being, if they were looking for Eru Illùvatar’s intervention, then they were looking in entirely the wrong place.

 

The dwarf barked out a laugh, the only one who didn’t blanch at the example, and sheepishly raised his glass towards Indil, “What, it wasn’t bad, you know for an elf—”

 

“That is not what I speak of,” Boromir continued, not deterred in the least.

 

“Boromir, you can’t mean—” Aragorn started, finally loosening his tongue, and with it earning the wrath of the firstborn son of a man who had claimed kingship for himself.

 

Boromir pointed directly at Indil, ignoring the way Éowyn stiffened in fury and alarm as well as the shouting of his comrades, “You know where the one ring is! With the one, even the armies of the dark lord will be nothing before Gondor! We can drive him back, wipe him off the face of Middle Earth for another age!”

 

As he spoke the room grew colder, the shadows longer, and whatever good cheer and lightness existed within Indil trickled out of him until only the steel and the cold fire of his twin soul remained. The pub retreated from their discussion, the other patrons little more than shadows on the wall, until only the seven of them remained.

 

“You’re one stands in the way of Gondor’s annihilation,” Boromir said, gesturing wildly at Indil, blind with passionate, desperate, madness to the changes in his environment, “Not Rohan, and certainly not an exiled king!”

 

“If you were to use the one ring, Boromir son of Denethor, then it is not your father nor Aragorn son of Arathorn you would be crowning king,” his voice was quiet, terribly so, and yet for all that it was soft it seemed to echo through the small pub as if they were inside a great cavern or an empty throne room, “The ring and the ring alone, would become king of men, and while you wasted away in madness and greed beneath his throne your kingdom would become Mordor’s second coming.”

 

He sighed, the fury bleeding out of him, a sudden cold exhaustion taking its place. Casually, he motioned towards Éowyn, looking at him with those wide blue eyes as if she had never seen him before in her life.

 

“Rohan is your only option.”

 

“My father,” Boromir said slowly, not looking at his companions or Éowyn for that matter, “Will not accept the aid of Rohan.”

 

“Then your people will die.”

 

Indil turned to look towards the rest of them, stunned into silence as they were, and he caught the wizard’s eye. Yes, he would do as he must, “Light the fires anyway, summon the army, the steward will lose face if he dares to turn them back when the Rohirrim are on his doorstep.”

 

Likely, Gandalf the Gray had already planned on doing just that.

 

And hopefully, hopefully, Rohan would arrive in time and their forces would be enough to stem the tide. Hopefully.

 

Indil stood, although it was really more of a graceless wobble (he really had drunk too much), and said, “Now, not that this isn’t always delightful and everything, but I’ve really had too much and am in need of an emergency nap. Éowyn, you can catch up with them or something and assure them that I didn’t kidnap you.”

 

Éowyn stood as well, pointing at him as she asked, “Can you even make it up the stairs like this?”

 

“Well,” he said looking down at himself, “I guess we’ll find out.”

 

He probably could, one way or another. Now, whether he remembered what room he was in was an entirely different story.

 

“Do you though?” Gandalf asked before Indil could even remove himself from the bench he’d been sitting in, “Know where the one ring currently is.”

 

And those eyes, gray and wizened as they were, held too much fire and too much insight in them. Though it was hardly intuitive, though it was hardly anything anyone would guess, Indil was suddenly struck with mortal terror and the thought that Gandalf knew.

 

Gandalf knew, could see through Indil to his twin heart, and see the ring curled protectively around Lily’s finger.

 

“No,” he said, far too shortly to be convincing, but before they could ask anything else he was practically flying up the stairs and into the inn room. There he slammed the door shut and leaned against it, listening to the sound of his heart rattling in his chest.

 

“Afraid of a wizard,” he scoffed to himself.

 

The room didn’t answer, it didn’t have to, because the truth of the matter was more than plain to him however much he wished it wasn’t.

 

With a small laugh he admitted to the empty room, “I do not wish to be the ring.”

 

* * *

 

“Do you really believe Rohan will be enough?”

 

For once, in the shared space of Lily’s mind, he and Lenin were not fighting.

 

Perhaps it was because the consequences had already, plainly, been laid out before them. Lenin had said his piece, the ring had listened, and yet even so they were back where they started once again.

 

There was nothing more that either of them could say.

 

Soon, he would relinquish Indil, himself, soon.

 

Still, in the privacy of Lily’s mind, seated in that familiar lavish room that Lenin called the Slytherin common room, he admitted, “No.”

 

“It will take time, a few days true, but time enough for the riders to reach Minas Tirith,” he said, “And that does not count for the time needed for their own troops to return from exile to Edoras. More, Rohan alone simply does not have the manpower or technology to take the east.”

 

Three thousand years ago, when elves had stood amongst them, and they had faced this same dread situation it had taken luck beyond all imagination to save them. The ring, cut from Sauron’s very hand.

 

There would be no such luck this time, at least, not through the ring.

 

If Gondor itself had been ready along with Rohan, if they were truly joined forces, and if what was left of the elvish kingdoms joined them as well…

 

But that was not the reality they were facing.

 

“So then, what will you do?”

 

“Nothing,” he said.

 

He would unmake Indil once again, do what he could to protect Éowyn and return her to Edoras, and he would leave Gondor to whatever men and orcs made of it. This was not his battlefield, it never had been.

 

And then Lenin and Lily would continue their journey to return to England while he…

 

While he decided which path to forge for himself, which path was already laid before his feet, when that time came.

 

Lenin said nothing to that, merely looked at the ring with those cold blue eyes, as if he did not have to say what he thought for he knew the ring could hear it all the same. That it was one thing to say such words so callously and another to do them.

 

“Perhaps it’s for the best,” the man remarked, standing with a sigh and reaching for a book, “You know my feelings on this fusion business of yours, the longer you stay here playing mysterious hero the more she suffers for it. And besides, this is no kingdom of mine.”

 

So, they had that much in common, did they?

 

That was not comforting.

 

Still, there was nothing for it, better for men to disappear from this earth than for him to aid them.

 

Certainly, it must be better.

 

“There is one thing I could do for them,” he said slowly, dread trickling down his spine as the thought he hadn’t allowed himself fell into his mind.

 

“Three thousand years ago, when all hope was lost, the ring was torn from Sauron’s finger and the orcs immediately fell into disarray. However, Sauron survived, and even now weakened though he is he has amassed an army that could destroy all kingdoms of men.”

 

As he said it their surroundings morphed into that battlefield, to Isildur cutting the ring from Sauron’s finger, and the three thousand years of freedom it had bought Middle Earth.

 

“Even if they defeat him now, he can and will return, again and again as a plague on this world.”

 

However long Middle Earth lasted, he would be there, until the silmarils reappeared from the elements and perhaps even after that. His fate, as had been said many times already, was tied to the one ring and nothing else.

 

“If the ring, if I, am destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom then it will all be over.”

 

If the quest of the fellowship succeeded, beyond all hope, then Sauron would be nothing more than a wraith on this world and Middle Earth would be saved. If the ring, of course, ceased to exist.

 

He had always known this, had said it often enough himself, but with the army practically on the doorstep of Minas Tirith this was the only point he had truly considered it as an option.

 

Not simply oblivion through assimilation, to be taken into Sauron’s fëa once again, but death in the burning liquid that had been his beginnings. The agony of being unmade as it were.

 

But he did not wish to die.

 

And was that so terrible?

 

He had only ever been, truly been, for a short time now and he did not wish to exit this world so violently and so soon. Why did he, of anyone, have to so nobly sacrifice himself for the good of a people who would never honor him for it?

 

“I must leave men to their own fate,” he said slowly, allowing the battlefield of so many years ago to disappear from view, “It no longer has anything to do with me.”

 

He, after all, was only a ring who liked to pretend he could wear the fair form of a maia.

 

* * *

 

And outside, even as the torches were lit against the will of the king, the black gates in the east opened.


	8. Chapter 8

He had not dreamed as Indil, if only because he had not slept as Indil. Indil was more maia in composition than he was human, or perhaps it was simply that Lily herself only masquerades as a daughter of men per her own convenience. The maiar could go far longer without sleep than men and when they did sleep it was more a silent retreat into memory and vision.

 

And it was strange, how at once he could feel the ring and the istär Lenin buried somewhere within him, but could also feel something beyond that. That tenuous connection, hidden and buried, back to his other self on that high dark tower in Mordor.

 

Always, constantly, singing the song of damnation gilded upon the ring’s flesh of gold.

 

The tale of the one ring to rule them all, to be above all other rings, and from the shadows enslave them and their bearers in his clawed grasp.

 

So, it was that he heard the pounding of the drums, of armor clanking in rhythm of marching, and the black gates opening.

 

His eyes flew open and he tore himself from the bed, heart pounding, flesh burning from the inside out, and all hint of drunkenness gone in a wash of cold terror.

 

He looked out the window, the dead of night now, it must have been hours since the meeting with the fellowship. Staring out the window he could not yet see the armies, was too close to the gates to have a chance of viewing them from a distance, and yet he knew they were coming.

 

“Christ,” he swore as he glanced down at his hand, not simply glowing in the dark, but glowing with those words. Those words that he had done everything and more in his power to rid himself of.

 

His chains, as it were, to everything he truly was at his heart.

 

If they were only just now marching through the gate, if they were headed for the river…

 

“No, they could very well be here by morning,” he said to himself, and that only caused the words to glow brighter, as if now that mankind’s annihilation was near the ring was fulfilling its destiny.

 

“Indil?”

 

He turned, caught sight of Éowyn, and then stopped and truly stared. For the first time in days, no a week at least, she was not dressed as a man. He didn’t know where she had found women’s clothing, he certainly hadn’t packed any as they’d fled Edoras, but all the same she was now wearing the garb of any relatively well-off human woman.

 

She…

 

She did not look necessarily more natural for it, he thought, instead she looked almost defeated or resigned like this.

 

Still—

 

Abruptly, he stopped, looked down at his hands in horror as he realized that the words had never left him, were instead only growing brighter and that she was now reading every cursed letter. More, that while perhaps she had not known before, she had now spent hours with the fellowship of the ring who suspected he harbored it in foolishness, greed, or madness.

 

And they would tell Éowyn what she should be looking for.

 

He forced himself to smile, tried to, but it was a pained and bitter thing that was at best a grimace, “So, they have convinced you to flee to Rohan?”

 

She said nothing, and he could see her putting two and two together against all possibility, recalling Lily’s damning words of jewelry lost for three thousand years as well as his sentence marked across every inch of his skin.

 

“I would advise against it,” he continued, his voice hoarse in a way that it never had been in all his existence, not even in that first moment of life facing Saruman who had dismissed all that he ever was and had the potential of becoming, “The gates have opened, time has run out.”

 

If she left by road she would all too likely run into the invading army, those not laying siege by river as Sauron blocked all avenues of escape. She should never have come to this place.

 

“I will keep you alive,” he said, forcing himself to keep looking at her and read every expression that passed through her eyes, “I owe you, your father, that much. I will return you to Edoras when I can and I—”

 

She cut him off, and instead in the same tone she had used when stating that he was leaving for Minas Tirith without saying a word to her she said, “So, you do have it.”

 

He laughed, a single, solitary pained note he did not know that he could make, “Éowyn, I am it.”

 

He lifted his hand, unburdened by gold or adornment of any kind, and hissed stalking towards her with eyes and skin burning in his desperation and his fury, “Where is my ring, Éowyn?! Did they ask you that when they told you the black script you should look for among my possessions? You see my chains, but where is my flesh?!”

 

He should never have left her with them. No, no, he should never have taken her in the first place. It would have always come to this, with anyone, and he was a fool to think otherwise. He had been acting as if he was a man, as if he wasn’t some composite thing who should never have existed, as if he had a right to star in a ballad not yet written.

 

“The Tale of the Fellowship Two: Electric Boogaloo” as Lily had called it.

 

And what had he imagined, when he’d gripped his arms around her waist on horseback? Had he thought that he would become Indiana Jones and she his feisty Miriam found outside of pubs in Nepal? That it would be nothing more than some delightful walking adventure in the white city in which he could let go and move past the weight of Sauron’s sins? As if the white rock of this city was not made of the bones of those he had damned?

 

What had he expected in all of this?

 

When had he, when had Indil himself, become a thing capable of wanting?!

 

(And why did it feel like his beating heart was being torn from his chest?)

 

She had taken a step back, in terror and defense, the wood beneath his feet was smoldering, thin trails of smoke rising upward to congeal on the ceiling, and yet he still stepped forward for each step she took back.

 

“Do you have any idea what I could do to you?” he asked, a slow, cruel smile curling on his lips, “Did they tell you?”

 

“I’m afraid it’s worse than whatever they’ve said,” he said with a laugh, “You see, while I can simply corrupt you as I inevitably corrupt and befoul the hearts of all men, I could also simply render you into ash or tear this memory of your mind. I could leave you convinced beyond all reason that the one ring, the bane of Isildur, never existed. I could leave you so that Éowyn, as a concept, never existed.”

 

They hadn’t thought of that, had they? What it might mean for Lily’s arsenal to be combined with the might and terror that was Sauron. Had not each of them, those with true power left, feared what would become of them if they took the ring? The power they would have, far more than a mere hobbit, and what did they think would happen if something like Lily wore it on her finger.

 

But he could tell from her face that they’d told her a tale that was certainly pretty enough.

 

“And yet, for all that I can see that they have told you something damning, perhaps convinced you that I must beyond all doubt be destroyed,” he said, “They have forgotten the most important question of all.”

 

Éowyn did not ask if he was truly the ring, did not ask what he would do to her, to them, but instead asked the question that they both knew she must, “And what is that?”

 

“They did not tell you to ask what I want,” he hissed, then finally, leaned back from her and stood in place. The wood beneath his bare feet was now charred black, a notable and ugly stain on the hardwood flooring in the shape of a man’s delicate feet.

 

He stood on a path in the woods where the road diverged. Down one lay Sauron’s blackened hand, a finger missing. Down the other, the fires of Mordor and his unmaking.

 

Beyond them was only oblivion, not Mandos’ halls, but the kind of oblivion no being forged of the sacred fire could ever go. His was the path to the Island of Misfit Toys, to the place where the clever clockwork contraptions went that tinkled, buzzed, and had the gumption to think they were something born instead of something made.

 

Worse than the golem slaves the dwarves had been before Eru had gifted them with sacred fire and burning souls.

 

And where did Indil, who was only a dream of such toys, go?

 

When he had disintegrated, been torn back into two halves, he could not remember where he went. It was as if that time had simply disappeared, been smoothed over, the memories remained tainted by each half as they were but the time was lost.

 

For Indil, those days fleeing from Rohan to Minas Tirith had not existed.

 

Not even black, just gone.

 

The ring, the thing that could not even call himself Mairon, could flee to England at least. He could damn Middle Earth, damn his fate and the song, and take the road Eru Illùvatar had never conceived of by simply taking Lily’s hand and leaving this world altogether. He could run forever and never look back.

 

Even the void, he thought in sudden mortal terror, was not the same as oblivion.

 

And in his memory the rasping words of the decrepit creature Smeagol had bcome, echoing in the dark cavern in his final riddle with Bilbo Baggins, “ _This thing all things devours: birds, beasts, trees, flowers; gnaws iron, bites steel; grinds hard stones to meal; slays king, ruins town, and beats high mountain down._ ”

 

And, of course, Bilbo’s despairing answer as yellowed teeth neared his throat, “ _Time, time, I need more time!_ ”

 

“Time,” Indil said breathlessly to himself, finding himself slowly walking away from Éowyn to sit on the threadbare sheets of his bed, “I need more time.”

 

His hands, he thought as he looked down at them, they were still glowing.

 

Of course they were still glowing.

 

A step, then another, but not the sound of a sword being unsheathed, and finally a soft thump as she lowered herself to her knees and took his hands in hers. He startled, looked up into her eyes, and discovered that they were watering and far more conflicted than he had ever expected, “Indil, what do you want?”

 

He opened his mouth, but it felt suddenly dry and he closed it just as quickly, swallowing he asked, “Did they not tell you that I am a corrupter of men, Éowyn? That I will use whatever good will and nobility you have against you as I have done all others in my path?”

 

And she smiled, a truer one than he had managed since they started, and she met his eye as she said, “I am no man.”

 

He laughed, a startled humorous thing, and shook him to the core, to his twin cores of the girl and the ring, “That was awful.”

 

Her smile broadened, her teeth now showing fully, and he found himself unable to help but smile in turn. Soon they were both laughing, shaking with laughter and unsaid tears over what had to be the worst pun he’d ever heard in Lily or the ring’s lifetime.

 

Finally, looking down at her with fondness, this girl who would never be king, he noted drily, “You know, something about this situation seems familiar.”

 

He had been on his knees as well, as Éowyn had sat in his allotted room in Edoras, holding her hands in his as he’d promised her a road to a nearby city, a chance to hold a sword, and all the battles she could imagine before them.

 

“Does it?” she asked in turn.

 

“Yes, dreadfully so,” he said with a sniff, “Although, I have to say, I did a much better job of it.”

 

“You called me a fish,” she reminded him with her own insulted and contemptuous sniff.

 

“I did not call you a fish,” he said, “I used a very apt metaphor (which you can’t go about denying now, by the way), and besides, we still don’t have anywhere to live, do we?”

 

She squeezed his hands once, biting her lip and looking away from him and towards the floor, undoubtedly gathering her scattered thoughts. Finally, all mirth fled, she looked up and asked him quietly, “What do we do now, Indil?”

 

He didn’t want to leave.

 

He…

 

He knew so little of this world, any world, and had barely had a chance to wear in his name. And yet, he was such an ephemeral thing. Because if it was her, if it was Lily, that he loved most about himself then he had to recognize that his very existence was destroying her.

 

No matter what happened to the ring, to her, he could not—

 

How many sunrises had he watched? How many sunsets? Had he taken time to look at the mountains and the way the light glittered across their snowcapped peaks? Had he looked for his reflection in rivers?

 

He had not seen the sea.

 

Looking out the window now he had only ever seen such a small corner of such a small world.

 

A single, solitary, bright flame who burned too fast at the wick.

 

And he had, indeed, seen things these people wouldn’t believe. He had seen his own c-beams glittering in the dark off the Tannhäuser Gate.

 

“You stay here, tell them what you’ve learned—” he watched in fondness as her eyes widened to the size of coins, undoubtedly realizing what they had planned for the likes of him.

 

“But—”

 

He cut her off in turn, shaking his head and smiling at her softly, with an expression no one in this world could imagine the likes of him wearing, “Tell them, Éowyn, I am not afraid of the fellowship of the ring.”

 

He did not know what they would do with this information, panic undoubtedly for a moment or two, beyond that they could throw a net over his head and drag him kicking and screaming into Mordor.

 

No, not him, Indil would no longer exist then.

 

“You can’t ask me to—”

 

“And while you do that, I will vanquish the army of the east as I did Saruman’s army in the west.”

 

That did it, there were no words for either of them after that, only staring at each other mismatched pair that they were. Almost, he thought, as if they had wandered into each other in the midst of two very different tales.

 

“And why should I not go into battle with you?” she asked.

 

And, as always, he simply could not help the words that fell out of his mouth, “Because that would be very stupid.”

 

Now it was her turn to laugh at his poorly timed joke. He waited for more vehement words, for some greater insistence, but she must have realized it as well as he did. This was not a battle of men where she had been left behind, but the battle of a single man that was not a man at all.

 

This was Sauron, in one capacity or another, destroying the last remnants of himself.

 

“When you leave,” she asked, “Will I ever see you again?”

 

He paused, wondering if she could read the answer in his eyes and the pulsing, glowing, words on his skin.

 

“Yes,” he said, his voice cracking beneath the grief he dared not to think about, “Every time you see a sunrise, the way the pink bleeds into gold, you’ll think of me and see my shadow. When you pass a river, any river that perhaps could be the river Isen, you’ll think of the sword you haven’t seen me carry and a tower that isn’t standing. When you watch a troupe of traveling players, good or awful beyond comprehension, you’ll wonder if it is a tale I’ve heard and see me among the audience. Every time you see a lily, pale or golden, you will think of me.”

 

And it was with wonder that he realized this truth for the first time, the truth that he had never once considered in his despair, “Éowyn, I will live in you.”

 

She threw her arms about his neck, squeezed too tightly, and he in turn clutched her back and smiled against the curve of her neck.

 

“Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

The sword of Gryffindor had not been made for battles such as these.

 

The wizards, the goblins of Lily’s world, they had not fought in battle the way the elves and men had in Arda. It had not been forged of a desperate, final, beautiful hope as Narsil had so many years ago.

 

Still, it had been forged for a man who had believed in honor and nobility, who Lily had been led to believe would have gladly stood in Indil’s place. If Narsil remained fractured in the halls of Rivendell then Gryffindor’s blade would have to do.

 

His skin still burned, glowed and itched, as if it could no longer quite contain him anymore. He supposed it no longer mattered, he was not here to hide, either from the fellowship or else the corrupted men and orcs who would move against him.

 

He walked out of the city, like a star that had fallen to the earth, and walked across fields and rivers towards the shadowy mountains so close to the east. If Éowyn had watched or else shielded her eyes he did not know.

 

He could smell them before he could see them, the rank and rotting smell of an army and its stores as it destroyed both civilization and landscape on its road to conquest. Boats, he thought, orcs, and gun powder that was such a new thing in this world.

 

And to the south an army on foot that he would have to see to next.

 

He paused, blade unsheathed and in his hand, and wondered if he did not have some last words for himself.

 

No one would hear them, and if they did then they would go unacknowledged.

 

They would not even have his name, clever forged thing that it was.

 

He had nothing though, nothing he could think to waste breath on. Only a moment to think, that despite everything, it was a beautiful night.

 

Too beautiful for so much bloodshed.

 

So, he moved, without any words for himself, and as he ran across the ripples in the river he swung his sword through the wood of boats extending light and fire with each swing so that they burned. As before, in the tower, it soon became a blur of battle cries and screaming terror with he scent of blood everywhere.

 

And when the boats were burning, when every last man, orc, goblin, and troll among them were dead he was running atop the river back to the fields and the southern road to where the sound of a thousand feet upon the ground marched even at night.

 

He must have looked like a shooting star.

 

Certainly, as he cut through them he burned like one.

 

He did not know when it was over, that is, he didn’t know how much time had passed and he didn’t look up to the stars to try and estimate. It was still night, but it was quiet, horribly quiet after the screaming.

 

The sword was red now and he was covered in blood.

 

Something scarlet as opposed to golden.

 

He breathed, let his eyes flutter shut for a moment, and simply stood in this empty quiet night surrounded by the bodies of so many men and so many orcs. He wished that he was not what he was…

 

“I wish that the ring had never come to me,” he said to himself, his voice sharp against the gentle night breeze, “I wish none of this had happened.”

 

And it was Gandalf, wasn’t it, who had answered Frodo’s lament in the dark caves of Moria, “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other force at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the ring. In which case, you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.”

 

Finally, he looked up at the stars and the moon, so bright in the darkness of a world without electric light. He smiled, “I suppose then, that there is only one last place to go.”

 

Indil straightened, took a step that was not forward but instead backward, into a time that had not existed in over three thousand years.


	9. Chapter 9

The ring inside of Lily, deep in the depths of her mind that seemed to extend like the depths of Moria, stared out into the darkness to where somewhere in the real world Indil who was neither Lily nor the ring stood with a sword in hand burning so brightly against the night.

 

“I don’t believe it,” he whispered, not to Lenin, not even to himself, but perhaps to everything he had ever believed in.

 

Indil had chosen death.

 

Willingly, he had stared into the abyss, not even Mandos’ Hall where the other mortal dead roamed, but true darkness and with a smile and bold confident steps he had said goodbye to the world he barely knew and embraced his own unmaking without anyone in the world who could understand what that meant.

 

Indil was going to vanish, just like that, with no one to mourn him and no grave marker to even mark his passing, and he decided it with a smile.

 

Indil had done what the ring, what Sauron, had avoided for millennia.

 

And he had done it with such horrific ease.

 

“I don’t believe it,” he said again, louder, and yet the words were still true.

 

Indil was half of him, and yet, he could not fathom that decision.

 

“I can.”

 

He turned, slowly, and watched as Wizard Lenin joined him at the edge of the abyss. Their surroundings looked like the end of the world, that pit in the mines of Moria where Lily had fallen and he had jumped after her in fair form. It was snowing again, their surroundings perfectly dark, and the air cold and filled with the mist of their breath.

 

“Honestly, it’s just like her,” Wizard Lenin said with that peculiar fondness he could not quite contain for his host.

 

“For however much she bemoans her fate, her role in the universe, she will always stand tall and walk proudly into damnation without any laurels,” Wizard Lenin explained, and in his eyes was the spark of fire that was either life itself or his feelings for her, “Of course, even something that’s only half of her, could do no less.”

 

“Yes,” the ring breathed, and he realized that this, perhaps, was what he had envied in Lily more than any other being.

 

That indomitable strength of will, an inner nobility that did not doubt in the face of all opposition, and the kind of heroics that defied ballads altogether.

 

If Lily had been there, in the beginning, when there was only Valinor and a half-baked Middle Earth, she might very well have followed Morgoth into the jaws of hell but she never would have stayed there.

 

Disparaged by the Valar, mocked by Mairon, whatever the world threw at her, never the less in the darkened caverns on the racks Morgoth devised she would have been grinning in defiance even when the rest of them were screaming. When even proud Mairon had been unmade and reforged into a shadow of himself.

 

Even if she hadn’t the power, even if she was a tenth of what she was, no prison or torment devised could have held her. She would have emerged, proud, triumphant, and free in a way that Sauron could not have conceived by the end of the first age.

 

And she would have come back for him. She would come back for him as she would come back Wizard Lenin in any and every circumstance. It did not matter if it was a war that was not of her making, on a side she should revile, or if he had spat at her and thrown her to the curb, she would be there all the same.

 

She would have dragged Sauron, who had forgotten what it ever meant to be Mairon, kicking and screaming into the light of day as if he had as much a right to sunlight as any other being.

 

If, of course, she had been there.

 

“Do you realize,” the ring said, swallowing and forcing the words past his lips, “How lucky you are, my friend?”

 

In any other circumstance he imagined the man would scoff, perhaps hiss and spit and bemoan his unfortunate circumstances, as it was he instead smiled, “I have an idea.”

 

* * *

 

 

Three thousand years gone by, stored in borrowed memories of the soul, and closing his eyes Indil thought it still smelled of honeysuckle far more than it did roses or lilies. There was the slightest of night breezes, warm from the summer heat, and the quiet gurgling of a fountain.

 

And more than anywhere else in all Middle Earth, perhaps Earth as well, it felt like home.

 

Finally, he opened his eyes, and found himself looking at a dumbstruck Celebrimbor who had undoubtedly just watched Indil appear from nothingness itself. He looked so young, so young and filled with life and curiosity. He had forgotten how he had looked, with that eager smile, those dark eyes shining, and silver hair only just pulled away from his face. Perpetually boyish, filled with unending joy of discovery and crafting…

 

Sauron had only been able to remember him defiant, broken, and bleeding as he was made into a banner to strike terror into his people. A bitter ghost as the three forever and always eluded Sauron after that.

 

For three hundred years, he had looked like he did now, and yet Sauron had only ever truly remembered those last few days at the end.

 

And looking at the idiotic expression on his face, the way his eyes comically bulged, Indil couldn’t help but laugh, “I didn’t really feel like walking.”

 

Celebrimbor, perhaps predictably, had nothing to say to that and seemed to be having a very hard time closing his mouth.

 

“I thought I should pay a visit, apologize, since we seem to be at the end of things,” Indil said in the quiet, taking a seat next to the dumbfounded man he had once made a friend and a fool, “It seemed like the right thing to do, paradoxes be damned.”

 

He cocked his head, listening beyond the mortal world and to the great song that underpinned all of this reality, “And besides, the song does not seem so corrupted. Perhaps, Eru Illùvatar approves of improvisation after all.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Celebrimbor said with the most awkward of smiles any elf could manage, “Do I know you?”

 

“Half of me,” Indil said with his own carefree grin stolen so easily from Lily, “The lesser half in my humble opinion.”

 

A sly, amused, grin, as if Celebrimbor was beginning to realize he was playing the fool in Indil’s unspoken joke, “Is that supposed to be a riddle?”

 

“My life is such that all honest, blunt, answers take the appearance of riddles,” he responded drily in turn, it was the truth, after all. No matter how he phrased it his existence seemed to be the most absurd and ridiculous of riddles to which even he did not know the answer.

 

The likes of Bilbo’s victorious, “What have I got in my pocket?”

 

“Well,” Celebrimbor, “I’d be happy to make your acquaintance, although first I must ask why you are brandishing a sword and why you appear to be covered in blood.”

 

He looked down at his hands, at the blade he still held there, and duly remembered that he was indeed practically soaked in the blood of men and orcs.

 

“Occupational hazard,” he said blandly, vanishing both the sword and blood away with a wave of his hand.

 

“Must be quite the occupation,” Celebrimbor said dully as, blinking, he took in Indil’s new blood-free appearance.

 

“I was trying to be on vacation, actually,” Indil explained with a shrug, not sure whether Celebrimbor would or should take him at his word either, “But somehow I got sucked into everything anyway.”

 

“But then,” he mused, “Destiny seems to be like that.”

 

“Like what?” Celebrimbor asked.

 

“It’s like waking up with a chain around your ankle,” Indil said slowly, picturing the scene in his mind, “It is lax at first, as you grow aware of your surroundings, but then it tightens and slowly but surely drags you into the darkness. And you only realize it too late, when it is taut, and no matter how you scrabble and grab for purchase at the rocks at the floor of the cavern it pulls you inch by bleeding inch backward…”

 

And at the end of that chain, waited Sauron with his missing finger and damned weakened form, all too eager to unthinkingly devour whatever was left of his own fëa.

 

And the ring was and always would be a thing of destructions, and with all eventualities eventual, there were only two true paths for him. One, for the good for the world, he would destroy himself and all power of Sauron with him or else merge back with his former half.

 

And both were oblivion, the end of all the ring ever was, and yet…

 

Indil looked over at Celebrimbor’s fair yet wary features and couldn’t help but smile fondly at the man that should have been his friend, “It is good to see you again.”

 

Celebrimbor, to his credit, tried to smile. It was not the kind of smiles he’d given Annatar at the beginning, middle, or the very end. In the beginning they’d been polite if distant, then the fond smile of a friend, and at the very end triumphant if bitter things as he kept from Sauron his trump cards that would ensure the freedom of Middle Earth.

 

This was instead an awkward thing, one that was trying to be a smile, but failing at it miserably as if he had forgotten how to smile at all in the face of whatever this was. Likely he was thinking of summoning the guard, perhaps summoning Annatar who as a vassal of the Valar undoubtedly had some experience in combat.

 

Still, perhaps it was the allure of the ring or perhaps it was the fact that Indil truly did mean no harm, because all Celebrimbor did was try and fail to smile. He did not shout for the guards or even raise his hand, just stared like a man who had found himself in the middle of a grand cavern without the slightest idea of how he got there.

 

The way most beings felt in Lily’s presence, Indil couldn’t help but think fondly.

 

He thought Celebrimbor probably would have liked the girl, had there ever been a world in which they could have met.

 

“But I wanted to ask you something,” Indil said, interrupting his own thoughts.

“Oh?” Celebrimbor asked, “You came all this way to ask me something?”

 

“You have no idea how far I’ve come,” Indil chastised, and Celebrimbor nodded dutifully, the hint of a true and amused smile on his lips, strands of silver falling over his dark eyes.

 

“Forgive me, how far have you come?”

 

“A little over three thousand years and a good number of miles,” Indil answered blandly, which was and sounded dreadfully far, and seemed far to Celebrimbor whose eyes were practically falling out of their sockets again.

 

Indil looked out past him, to the gardens of Eregion, lost in time as they were, and let the words fall out of his mouth almost without thinking, “The one ring is made of gold, I believe, for a very specific reason. If Sauron, Mairon, was a metal he would be gold. A precious, shining, metal that was so very malleable and so very easily tarnished.”

 

And how he’d glittered in Valinor, in the eyes of his first master and Morgoth in turn, how he must have shone with sheer potential for all he could become. It was small wonder, really, that gold had suited his fëa so well.

 

“Lily, my other half, the half you do not know, is not gold. She is a diamond,” he said quietly to both Celebrimbor and his gardens, “She shines no less brightly, but there is no shaping her, no breaking her, and certainly there is no tarnishing her no matter the ages that pass. Even had Morgoth set his sights on her, even if she had wandered into his mechanizations as he once had, she would never have been his slave.”

 

As Mairon, though he had never dared to say the words, had been Morgoth’s slave.

 

“And I want that,” he said, his voice shaking it, “I chase it so desperately within myself that I would risk destroying her altogether just to become her.”

 

“You realize,” Celebrimbor said slowly, warily, eyes dark with a hidden fear of wars half-forgotten from the first age, “That I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

 

“Of course not,” Indil said, coming back to himself and this present moment that was his past before things had gone to hell again, “You’re three thousand years out of date. I think I just needed to say that bit, that wasn’t what I was going to ask.”

 

He sighed, rubbed at the back of his head, and tried to pinpoint why he’d felt such a desperate need to speak to Celebrimbor of all people. Shared history, no doubt, but perhaps it was because Celebrimbor, of all beings, deserved to be the one to give this answer.

 

“I am going to die soon,” Indil said quietly, a soft smile on his face for the ease at which he could say it out loud, “As soon as I can, really.”

 

“Myself, well, I do not know what will happen to the maia Indil,” he said, “However, the fate of the one ring is left undecided. He can be destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom from whence he came, to face the same oblivion I all too likely face, or he can be joined back with the rest of his soul and whatever horrors await him with assimilation. Should he choose fire, Celebrimbor, or ice?”

 

Celebrimbor said nothing for a very long time, simply looked out past Indil and into the gardens. Finally, quietly he said, “You know, I had been hoping for a night to myself, simply to clear my head.”

 

“My apologies,” Indil said, “I had been hoping not to have to slaughter the armies of evil and yet here we are.”

 

Celebrimbor nodded once, in silence, then after a pause remarked drily, “You realize I still haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

 

“I didn’t come to you because you had the full context, Celebrimbor,” Indil said, “But because you, of all people, are entitled to an opinion.”

 

“So, you do know my name then,” Celebrimbor remarked, leaving Indil to realize he hadn’t really said it at this point, “Perhaps this is a dream.”

 

“If that makes you feel better,” Indil said with a painful shrug, not really sure how to take that, he supposed he couldn’t really blame the man.

 

“It’s a very confusing dream,” Celebrimbor said with a furrowed brow and then, turning to look at Indil and take him in inch by inch, add, “And one with high stakes.”

 

“My fate is sealed, Celebrimbor,” Indil said, “All you have to tell me is the path I should take.”

 

Because Indil did not know, truly, whether it was better to fling the ring into he mountain and destroy all Sauron ever could be or give into a greater inevitability and reforge himself upon Sauron’s finger.

 

The first seemed like the honest, true, answer and yet it left such a sour taste in his mouth. As if to choose that path was to give up on all he ever once was and could have been. It was to condemn and destroy Mairon as well as Sauron.

 

“Well,” Celebrimbor said after a pause, “If you’re willing to accept that I truly have no idea what you’re talking about—”

 

“I can accept that,” Indil said with a grin that seemed to do nothing to ease Celebrimbor’s nerves.

 

“Then I suppose I would say… the second,” Celebrimbor finished after a pause, and then the spark was back in his dark eyes, that spark that had belonged solely to him in the three centuries Sauron had known him, “I prefer to believe in redemption, second chances as it were. Destruction is such a final end, where nothing awaits you at the end, and the other… At least it is not an end, but simply a different beginning.”

 

It could go wrong, Indil wanted to say, Sauron upon gaining back his soul would have more than what he needed to take Middle Earth. And what would become of Lily then, on the doorstep of Mordor and handing the ring over to the man? It could be the decision that very well damned them all.

But…

 

But it was the one decision that did not damn Sauron.

 

Mairon, Lily had called him, with a confidence and faith that was not to be defied or broken.

 

She had called him Mairon, and Indil knew, that if she were able she would have given the same answer as Celebrimbor.

 

So, all Indil could do was stand and smile, “Thank you, my old friend.”

 

Then, from the air he sang into existence a small, innocuous necklace singing a small hidden note of song and placed it into Celebrimbor’s pale calloused hands, “For when all faith is sundered and hope is lost, keep it secret, keep it safe, and when the time is right just say ‘portus’.”

 

Celebrimbor inspected it, the small silver glittering thing, little more than a trinket, and asked, “And will I have this in the morning?”

 

“Well, that’s for me to know and you to find out,” Indil said with a smile, “But whatever you do, Celebrimbor, do remember to call.”

 

And with that he was gone, as quickly as he came, on a night none but Celebrimbor would ever know of or remember.

 

* * *

 

 

As Indil, they teleported straight into the heart of Mordor at the end of this third age. One last time, they wore his pale limbs and took him step by step up the dark high tower in Barad Dûr. In his mind there was the strange, intangible, echo of Lily’s thoughts.

 

_“You could run, you know.”_

 

There was always England, where she and her friend the wizard Lenin would no doubt find themselves again one day. He could become minister there, a king in all but name, and rearrange the British Isles to his own designs just as he had Mordor for thousands of years.

 

He could always run.

 

However, Mairon had been running long enough.

 

For three thousand years as a ring, for twice that as a maia, he had been running ever since he set foot on the corrupted shores of Middle Earth.

 

He could run, but as Lily so often thought to herself, the trouble with running was that too often you discovered you were on a treadmill all along.

 

He paused at the last step of the tower, just under Sauron’s metaphorical nose. The heat of him was like the heat of the sun, sweat pouring down Indil’s fair skin at the mere proximity. He took one final breath, as Indil who was the best and worst of the pair of them, and then slid the ring that could not be seen or felt off his finger.

 

And just like that they were two again, Lily, and Mairon.

 

How could such a being as her, he thought as he looked down at her, have the nerve to look so impossibly young? And how could he see so much of Indil, the best of what they had been, inside her eyes?

 

“Are you sure?” Lily asked him, one last time as it were.

 

“I’m sure,” he said, glancing down at his pale hands, now burning bright with the black script given Sauron’s proximity, “I am tired of running and being little more than clever clockwork.”

 

“You know, there’s no shame in running away,” Lily chastised him, which in turn only caused him to smile.

 

“Lily, I have been running for six thousand years,” ever since the end of the battle that decided the first age, when he had run from his trial in Valinor, he had been running.

 

And there was all the shame in the world in it.

 

“Well then,” Lily said, sitting down on the last step and placing her hands behind her head as she leaned against the wall, “Come hell or high water, I’ll wait for you here.”

 

“It won’t be me who comes down these steps,” he reminded her but she said nothing, just gave him a rather knowing look.

 

“I choose to believe, Mairon, that I will see you again,” then that infectious, impossible, and unstoppable grin that had so unnerved everyone in Middle Earth, “I’ll see you on the other side.”

 

Without a word, with only a nod, he turned and took the final steps up the tower, straight into the burning heart of the eye of Sauron, to wage war against the worst of himself. And for that single moment, glowing and stepping forth into the darkness, he knew that it would be Mairon and not Sauron who would emerge victorious.

**Author's Note:**

> Now this is a strange one that I wrote while settling between this and "Eleanor Potter and the Train Station Called Purgatory" to fulfil a prompt. That said it grew and became... Strangely good as it kept going along. So, with that, here we are. I like it at any rate.
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> Thanks for reading, comments, kudos, and bookmarks are greatly appreciated.


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